Inmates of the Clark County jail in Jefferson made their own drugs, stashed weapons all over the jail and engaged in rampant gay prostitution
By Ollie Gillman | Daily Mail | May 28, 2016
Homemade drugs, violent attacks over food and rampant gay prostitution have been exposed at one of America's toughest jails after seven people went in undercover as prisoners.
The brave civilians posed as inmates for a documentary as they spent two months behind bars alongside dangerous thugs and drug dealers at Clark County Jail in Jefferson, Indiana.
The volunteers were sent in with fake identities and were treated like prisoners for the full two months, with none of the inmates and hardly any of the jail's staff knowing they were not convicts.
The undercover prisoners discovered that drug use was huge inside the jail.
With illegal substances harder to get hold of, the inmates had taken to making their own homemade highs, including one called 'crack stick'.
They would make the drug by crushing an e-cigarette filter, wrapping it in coffee-soaked toilet paper and smoking it, Business Insider reported.
DIY drugs were not enough for the convicts, with narcotics also smuggled in from outside the jail.
Low-risk prisoners were allowed to help with tasks like food preparation, but the documentary discovered that they were using this as a way of getting drugs into cells.
Trusted inmates would hide drugs inside the food trays and smuggle them into the women's section of Clark County Jail.
Other items hidden all over the correctional facility included blades made from any items prisoners could get their hands on.
This included a plastic toothbrush sharpened to make a dangerous weapon and a metal shank that was found stashed inside a lighting fixture.
More contraband discovered in the prison block included cell phones. Armed guards had to raid sections of the facility to find a phone on one occasion after fears it was being used to organize attacks on inmates.
The undercover prisoners also found that convicts would get into the most trivial of fights, with one violent row breaking out after a man failed to give another his hash brown as promised.
'It's not really fighting over hash browns. It's fighting over a guy not keeping his word,' one of the show's volunteers said.
Another of the seven posing as prisoners said they could tell a fight was about to start when inmates started 'lacing up' their sneakers.
They revealed that violent prisoners preferred not to wear their jail-issued sandals when brawling as they would slip.
Gay prostitution was rife in the male section of the jail, with one inmate offering himself to others in exchange for items from the commissary.
Prisoners had other ways of getting hold of goods from the commissary too. One new inmate was pressured into buying luxury items, such as beef jerky, for a tougher
Even one of the volunteers was targeted during her two-month imprisonment. An inmate who was higher up the food chain stole the woman's sandals from her feet, leaving her confused as to whether she should stand up for herself and risk a beating, or allow it but risk being regarded as easy prey.
One of the volunteer inmates, a Marine called Zac, told the News and Tribune that he met a fellow serviceman behind bars on drug charges.
'I mean whether it's PTSD or chemical dependency - whatever it was that caused Brian to go down the path he went as opposed to the path that I chose in my life - it's a tough situation,' Zac said.
'But at the same time, he still signed a contract with his life on the line, so that brotherhood still exists there.'
There was also suffering on the cell, with one female inmate trying to kill themselves by leaping from a second-floor railing.
Prisoners were given one hour a day of recreation time, in which they were taken into an enclosed room, where they could socialize and exercise.
One of the volunteers ended up in solitary confinement for breaking a jail rule.
The harsh conditions saw the man, called Robert, held in a tiny cell for half of his time in the facility. He was held in the cramped room for 23 hours a day.
Cameras were set up all around the jail for the A&E documentary series 60 Days In, with the prison's 500 inmates told filming was taking place - but not why.
Sheriff Jamey Noel told Entertainment Weekly that the prisoners soon forgot about the cameras and did not know they were locked up with seven people from the outside world.
He said the volunteers were given 'certain code words and different gestures' they could do if they felt they were in danger.
Prison staff would then rush in and take them to another part of the jail - something Noel says happened a few times.
The Sheriff allowed the filming so he could learn where the prison is going wrong, and one inmate has since been charged with drugs offenses after smuggling illegal substances into the jail.
EDITOR’S NOTE: What those volunteers found is quite common in many of America’s jails and prisons. With the exception of a super-max, inmates are the ones who actually run prisons, and they do it by the law of the jungle.
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