Hardly anyone would ever tell you they think prison is a good place to wind up. Anyone who doesn’t think along those lines, is probably going to end up there, is there, or maybe has been there already. There is a multitude of reasons why a person should never want to pay a visit to their state-run prison facility. The reality is your life will be forever changed, and most likely not for the best, if you are forced to spend any amount of time incarcerated. Not even family members and friends want to visit a prison facility, let alone having those they care about become a permanent resident inside of the prison walls.

Someone who likes to do what they please, when they please, and lives life on their own terms is someone who will not fare too well in prison, and probably won’t survive the experience. The life they have grown accustomed to, will be ripped away the moment they step foot on the grounds of the prison. The food is barely edible, the living conditions are nothing short of horrific, and the overall general atmosphere of any state-run prison facility is not what any normal person wants to be a part of.

Just in case you are one of those people who doesn’t know what the worst things about being in prison are, today we will go over several of them for you. If you are planning to do something in the future that might land you in prison, what you are about to read should instantly change your mind.

15. The Culinary Horror

If you like to eat, or consider yourself a “foodie”, prison is not the place for you! The food that is served to inmates is extremely bland, and has been best described as a culinary horror. There are no condiments available to spice up your meal, so what they serve is food in just about its plainest form.

Just like anything else over the course of time, you may find a few things more palatable than others. But if you think you are going to be served a burger, or a pizza, or some ice cream, think again. Keep that in mind before starting your next crime spree!

14. The Cramped Living Quarters

Do you like extremely damp and cold conditions? Or maybe you like it really hot with little to no air conditioning. If you fall into one of these categories, go out and rob a bank and secure this environment for yourself for the next ten years or so. Most prisons are all about cost-effective practices, so saving money at every corner is expected. Air conditioning naturally falls into this money-saving practice, so it is usually only found in the main office areas where the non-prisoner employees spend their days. The same goes for heat. Winters and Summers can be brutal in states that experience such weather extremes.

13. The Lack of Proper Medications

Your medical history doesn’t come with you when you arrive in prison. If you suffer from any ailments, prison is definitely not the place for you. Any serious health issues, or ailments that require medication stronger than just an aspirin, will be a problem. You will most certainly experience a care gap if you are on prescription medications. The prison doctor can prescribe emergency prescriptions like blood thinners, or diabetic medications more quickly. If you have a legitimate prescription, the prison doctor still gets the final say as to what drugs you will receive. Hopefully, you will eventually get what you need; but you will suffer in the meantime. It takes time, but you have it.

12. Your Cell Mates

Depending on the facility you may end up in a cell with one to three other inmates. This inmate cocktail may not always work out in anyone’s favor because whenever you have multiple personalities in a very small space there are bound to be problems. If you have a cellmate who drives you crazy, and you each have a sentence of a year or more to serve, it can be a very unpleasant experience. Sure there are times when cellmates become friends, mainly because they are thrust together and they have no choice. But if personalities clash, it can end up being a very bad situation for one if not all of them.

11. There Is No Freedom

If you are one of those independent type people you’d better not go to prison. Your freedom is completely stripped from you the second you step through the door. Right now you live every day coming and going as you please, and pretty much do anything you want. That all changes the moment you are assigned to a prison facility. You’d better get used to people telling you what to do and following orders very quickly. There isn’t a single day that will go by where someone isn’t telling you what to do and when to do it. So if this is something that doesn’t sit well with you, then prison is not the place for you to be.

10. It’s Very Loud

Do you like peace and quiet? Are you one of those people who like to have plenty of alone time? Well if you are, then you’d better stay on the right side of the law and keep yourself out of prison. There is nothing quiet and there is no solitude when you are in prison. The sheer number of people in prison prohibits you from ever finding a moment of peace. There are just too many people, and most of them always have something to say. You’d better get used to being a socialite because there is no privacy and there is no peace. Headaches will become your new best friend.

9. There Is No Entertainment

Well, that’s not necessarily true. A better way to put that header is there isn’t any type of meaningful entertainment. Anytime you have the collection of unsavory characters in one place, there will always be some sort of entertainment. Television is very popular, but you can’t always choose what to watch, and there are restrictions on watching during certain hours. If you are looking at a long prison stay you’d better get used to playing cards. That’s the main source of entertainment while in a state-run prison facility. Don’t let television and movies fool you into thinking there are plenty of things to keep you occupied, because there just isn’t.

8. The Guards

You’ve seen all the movies where the guards in prisons treat the prisoners like crap. For the most part, it’s a pretty good depiction of how things are, but they have to be smart about it. Guards are normally outnumbered by quite a bit at any given time. So a guard, that isn’t at the very least respectful to inmates, can have his life in danger at any given moment. That doesn’t stop a lot of them from improper treatment of the inmates though. Most guards do it simply because they can get away with it.

7. The Constant Violence

Whenever you put a bunch of criminals together in the same place, something is bound to go wrong at some point. It’s inevitable that there are going to be disagreements and in many instances, those disagreements turn violent. The various types of violence that can occur are forcible rape, theft, aggravated assault, manslaughter, and even murder.

In many prisons, there is violence on a daily basis, and in some facilities the guards even promote it among their inmates to entertain themselves. The guards aren’t needed to start up a fracas, though. Bored inmates who have a chip on their shoulder can start a fight over something as meaningless as toilet paper being put in the wrong place.

6. The Mundane Daily Regimen

Prisoners’ daily life or ‘daily schedule’, has the most mundane and mind-numbing activity list, but it is a necessary part of running the facility as smoothly as possible. Someone else arranges every aspect of your daily life the second you arrive, creating in a social sense, zero autonomy. Every minute of your day is planned out for you, from the wake-up and roll calls to the meals, telephone calls and walks. Now, that doesn’t mean you will have something scheduled every minute of the day. There might be several hours in a day with nothing to do, but that’s only because that’s the way the facility wants it.

5. The Volatile Atmosphere

In prison, things can change in a heartbeat. At any given moment things can turn from semi-peaceful into an all-out knock down drag out brawl. In many cases, the cause can be pinned down to something very meaningless in life outside of the prison walls. For instance, something like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich not being handed over in a timely manner could lead to a fight, or even an all-out brawl. In prison, any situation can turn in a moment’s notice, and there doesn’t always need to be a good reason for it. One prison facility once saw more than $10 million in damage from a twelve-hour riot. That riot was started over a can of soda.

4. Anything Can Be Used As A Weapon

Spending any amount of time in prison requires you have to watch your back. It doesn’t matter if you think everyone likes you, because there is always someone who doesn’t. Inmates are very ingenious when it comes to creating weapons, out of the few things they actually get as part of their daily routine.

A toothbrush can be filed down on concrete into a very sharp stabbing device known as a shank. Shanks can also be made from plastic silverware, items stolen from prison work areas, and even bed parts. They are pretty popular in facilities among the inmates because they are small and easily hidden. The damage they can do though can be deadly.

3. Lack Of The Opposite Sex

Are you a woman who likes the company of a man or vice versa? Neither is a good thing if you are to spend any amount of time in prison. The longer your sentence, the longer you will have to suffer being without the intimate contact from the opposite sex. There are very few females that work in male prison facilities, and if they do, they are usually extremely cautious for obvious reasons. In a women’s prison though, there are usually more men available simply because the guard positions are usually more male-dominated. At least the women have something to look at. The male inmates rarely get to see a woman.

2. Things Can Change 

The daily structure that prison facilities practice is very strict, but it is ever-changing to keep the prisoner’s on their toes. They tell you what to do, how to do it and when to do it, but that doesn’t mean it’s done the same time and way every day. Some things are actually changed up a bit several times a week, and this is done with good reason. It keeps the inmate paying attention at all times, because making a mistake with the wrong guard can have severe results. Things change a lot allowing the guards to keep control at all times.

1. They Breed More Criminals

People who go to prison often do their time and just want to get out as quickly as possible. However, in a lot of cases, criminals can actually hone their craft or even learn a new one while inside prison walls. The phrase “Great Minds Think Alike” is alive and well inside the prison, and there is always someone around willing to teach a new version of an old crime.

In the classic movie The Shawshank Redemption, inmate Andy Dufresne was committing tax evasion and wire fraud from the prison, on behalf of the warden. He couldn’t have said it better, “On the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.”