I’m likely stating the obvious when I say that most people don’t want to go to prison. While it’s true that movies and TV shows have a tendency to exaggerate what goes on in correctional facilities, the real stories of prison life don’t make it seem any more desirable.
Nonetheless, trends reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics show that the number of Americans in prison can often exceed 1 million at any given time nowadays. So even if you’ve never set foot in a prison yourself, the odds are becoming increasingly likely that you know somebody who has.
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And no matter how that person’s experience went, the stories we’re about to go through show that once they’ve spent enough time inside, they’re likely to find something about the outside world that makes it hard to recognize.
Over the past 12 years, one state prison councilor has noticed that many inmates are itching to do one particular thing as soon as they get out.
As their offspring explained in a Reddit post , so many inmates are waiting for the day when they can feel their bodies submerged in water again.
Whether it’s because they’re taking a bath or going for a swim, that feeling is something that completely eludes them now because prisons just have showers.
While most of the inmates we’ll be hearing from today were shocked by changes, one was more surprised when something stayed the same.
As one former inmate’s coworker posted , he was stunned to see that his car was on the street in the same spot he last left it six years prior.
Although the battery was dead, the tires still held air and he was able to start the car with a push. Above all else, he was the most surprised that nobody had taken it or towed it.
Although the fact that they have TV in prison made one inmate somewhat aware of what was going on outside, they soon discovered there was a lot of context that didn’t make it onscreen.
As one inmate wrote after completing a six-year sentence, they didn’t realize how much of the world becomes inaccessible when you don’t have a smartphone.
As they put it, “Companies don’t even do paper applications anymore.”
When one Reddit user’s cousin got out of prison in 2006, his mind was blown by the Game Boy Advance, of all things.
In their post , the user explained that at the time, they were a child and the cousin had just spent between 10 and 15 years behind bars.
So while the Star Wars game the user was playing was mildly entertaining to them, their cousin was amazed at the graphical capabilities of the system. Soon enough, he would learn that even at the time, that wasn’t the most cutting-edge gaming experience one could have.
But of course, it’s worth remembering that even the first Game Boy was relatively new by the time he went to jail.
For a more recently released inmate, the biggest adjustment concerned the fact that their city had a lot more electric scooters lying around than before.
But as the replies to their post suggested, the sudden rise of companies like Bird and Lime that made these scooters available in major cities was just as jarring and sudden to those who were around to witness it.
For one former inmate, the difficulty of their adjustment back to life on the outside would hit home when their uncle took them to Walmart.
As they put it , “In there I had no choices & was given what I needed. Having all these options overwhelmed me. I gave my list to my uncle to get it for me. It was really hard to go out in public for a while.”
They also found that while they had looked forward to being able to sleep in a dark, quiet room with nobody around, it took longer than they expected before they actually felt comfortable enough to get any sleep that way.
After six years behind bars, one person has developed a new appreciation for the sights and colors of the natural world.
In their words , “I forgot how gorgeous nature was, it put the thought into my mind that I never want to go back, because there is no beauty in prison, the beauty is on the outside. I’m glad I’m out now, and every day still take in the amazing outside world for what it is.”
Another user was moved by this answer and recommended checking out the Big Bend National Park in western Texas.
As one user explained, a whole world of little details opens back up to you when you’re back in the outside world after a stint in prison.
And most of the time, they saw this change in little details such as the fact that they can now shower without flip flops and can feel carpet between their toes again.
They describe what you experience in prison as being the first page of a book that you get to see the remainder of when you get out.
As they put it , “People think about a prisoner doing time but don’t understand that the time does them. You are frozen in it. While you’re stuck in a constant loop of the same day every day, the rest of the world moves on without you. When you get home, you feel left behind. It’s an anxious panic to catch up after that.”
When one user was released, a simple ride in a car felt like they had climbed into a roller coaster.
As this person worded it, “When I got to ride in a car again, it felt like we were going about warp 15. I think we’re only moving about 45 miles an hour.”
Although new technology tended to be a change that former inmates noticed the most, one user’s dad was more shocked by the way something familiar had changed.
More specifically, the user mentioned that he was particularly stunned by how much the prices at McDonald’s had risen in the 13 years he was away.
Considering how oddly steep their prices seem even if you take inflation into account, he’s right to be a little weirded out by that change.
h/t: Reddit | RedditR_Us
