If you think the prison guards on Orange is the New Black see some crazy things, just wait until you read these true stories from real prison guards collected from a Reddit discussion. The hoosegow is a crazier place than TV lets on.
WARNING: Many of these stories are extremely disturbing and may include graphic depictions of violence and sexual assault.
Prison Guards Describe the Most Disturbing Things They Saw,
Creepiest Prison Ever
"I work at a medium security facility as a correctional officer and I have friends at other prisons. You get the odd 'I'll kill you and your family' blah blah blah . . . [but]
"There is one guy at my place that has a constant thousand-yard stare. It's not what he says, it's how he says it... even a simple "yeah...ok" coming from him makes you think twice about your next move.
"There is an apparent ghost that haunts our place as well. I've never seen him but it's suppose to be a con that died years ago.
"Other than that nothing really comes to mind."
Brutal Attack
"I was an officer at a medium security prison. I witnessed a fight between an MS13 member and a Blood. MS13 is as brutal as they come. The MS13 member knocked out the Blood, then attempted to pull his eyes from their socket. I was on the other side of a barbed-wire fence and couldn't intervene. I had to watch until someone else arrived, which was quick enough to save the Blood's life. I don't remember seeing the Blood come back after that trip to the hospital.
"That's the closest I've ever been to seeing someone get murdered. If the tower officer had a clean shot, I'm sure there would've been one less MS13 member."
Resident Ghost
"I don't expect people to believe me, but I know what I saw. It was about 2:00am, I was sitting at my desk and I looked up because I saw a person walk across the range into the shower area, which is impossible because I was the only officer in there and all the inmates were locked down. Freaked me out so I got up to make a round. There was a Native American inmate in the cell directly adjacent to the shower that saw it also. He asked me if I just saw what he saw. I told him yes and we both kind of chuckled. The ghost or whatever you want to call it, is that of a Native American that had hung himself in that housing unit decades earlier. He tends to appear to other Natives when they are in the unit. Separate incident but same ghost also appeared to another young native inmate who told me how this 'native dude' was sitting on the end of his bed one night just looking at him. I had never told this inmate about the ghost."
Horrifying Transformation
"I had a woman recently who was so convinced she was innocent of driving without a license that she began scratching and biting her arms to draw blood so she could be seen by our crisis group so she'd have a chance at leaving to one of the mental faculties. She faked multiple seizures, asthma attacks, and rape claims all WHILE we were restraining her to prevent her from killing herself. Her voice eventually went out and she started sounding a lot like a demon from hell. That was just last week, though."
NSFW and Upsetting Attacks
**WARNING: Disturbing Content**
"I worked at a county jail for two years, and most of the inmates were waiting to go to the penitentiary. One day, a guy entered my unit, and started bragging on how he raped a girl. Well, to find out, it was another inmate's younger sister. I remember hearing a yelling coming out of an inmate's cell during their activity time, so I called a code 4 (disturbance) and ran over to see what was going on. Inmate 1 (the rapist) was held down by three other inmates, and Inmate 2 (the victim's brother) had his arm all the way down to his elbow up the other guys ass.
"After we separated them, and Inmate 2 was moved to Administrative Segregation (solitary), I finally got a chance to ask why did he do that specifically. His response was, and I quote, "Man, that muthaf*cka was a mark b*tch. Like some Muppet ass nig**, so I gave the Muppets a new character."
"I will never forget what I saw that day..."
From Hell
"This probably isn't my best story but it's my favorite. Inmate hadn't showered in weeks. She smelled terrible. She was in secured housing so her bunkie had been making complaints. After a certain amount of time, lack of hygiene is a disciplinary violation. She goes to confinement for a forced shower.
"I'm fairly new in the department at this time so of course I get the grunt work. I have to go to her locker, retrieve her property, and inventory it for storage. She refuses to give us the lock combination so we have to use the bolt cutters. Finally get it open and it's filthy. She has a bag of wet dirty clothes. I double glove up at this point. The clothes are mildewed. I take the bag of clothes out and find used maxi pads all over her property. At the time I was in complete shock but I couldn't show it. There were roaches coming out of the locker as I pulled more stuff out. Just filthy.
"I finally get to her paperwork. I was sure that the worst was behind me. Nope. The first folder is full of demonic horned figures. Pages and pages of them. Real grisly pictures. Decapitations, torture, and tons of blood. I thought that these figures were just scribbled in for color but after I looked closely, it was officers' names written hundreds of times within these characters. Each character was an officer. Each "dead" figure was a staff member that was no longer there. I've had inmates threaten to kill me, inmates tell me my address, my license plate number and where I'm from. Still to this day that creepy old woman is the creepiest thing I've ever dealt with."
Grisly Suicide and Murder
"Worst thing I've seen is a two-way tie.
"Had an inmate kill himself by taking apart a razor and bending it around the end of a pen and going at the side of his neck until he passed out. Was found within 10 minutes of it happening and there was blood all over.
"The other one was when an inmate was murdered in a yard. He was bench pressing and two inmates held the bar on top of him while a third inmate dropped a heavy dumbbell on his forehead. It dented from just above his eyebrows to his hairline in a solid inch and a half, was all over but the twitching after that."
Almost Like Hannibal Lecter
"Worked in a lock-down for violent sex offenders for way too long. Got told very calmly 'as soon as you're alone and there's no one to save you, I'm going to f*ck you to death.' What's scarier though is the really manipulative guys will listen in on you constantly and memorize any bit of personal information you let slip. Then when they want something they'll come to you like they know you and start telling you stuff about your life that you don't realize they've pieced together. Also prisoners have access to public records so as soon as they know your name they'll put on orders for every bit of info they can."
Disturbing Evidence
"I've known two unrelated inmates who got hold of their crime scene pictures as part of their legal proceeding. Their kick was to call unsuspecting staff to their cell door's window and flash them their dead victim pictures. One of them straight up told me he enjoyed seeing the horror in our eyes as we looked at their handiwork."
Hey CO, Check This Out...
"I work at a prison. The worst thing I've ever had happen to me when I was doing a round is an inmate in his cell stopped me and said 'Hey, CO [correctional officer], check this out,' then slit his throat with a razor blade."