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Dealing with Inmates
LA County Jail Interview
*Names have been changed to protect privacy.
Jail Media: Was it hard to get along with the inmates?
Ben Smith: Not really. The biggest thing with LA and Orange County, if you’re a minority in LA, you’ve got the advantage. LA is based on the Hispanic community, and the black community. Orange County is more of a white community, so if you’re white, Orange Coutny is great for you. In LA, you’re really outnumbered.
Jail Media: What types of things would you do to avoid problems with the inmates?
Ben Smith: As soon as I went in there, I pretty much kept to myself. Every jail you go to, as soon as you get to your dorm or to your housing facility, somebody is going to come up to you and ask you what race you are. An inmate will, right away. Say you’re Hispanic, or Mexican, or White or Black, they’re going to come up to you and offer you a helping hand because they want you to hang out with them. There’s power in numbers, so you won’t have to worry about trying to prove yourself or anything like that. As soon as you get in there, they’ll come to you. The difference between LA and Orange County – when you’re being processed in LA, I don’t know if they’re supposed to ask this or not, but they do – they really do a lot of classification. They’ll ask you your race, your ethnicity, they’ll ask you if you’ve ever been in gangs before, what kind of guys you hang out with, who you might have a problem with in here, like if you’re from one neighborhood, and you have a problem with another neighborhood, they’re not going to put you in with guys from that neighborhood. They’re trying to avoid a conflict completely. They’ll also ask you your sexual orientation. So if you’re homosexual, they’re gonna separate you right off the bat. If you have diseases, AIDS, whatever, they’re going to separate you.
Jail Media: If you knew someone in there, could you select an inmate as a cellmate?
Ben Smith: No, if you do know someone in there, don’t mention it, because you might get the luck of the draw and end up getting housed with them. But don’t mention it, because if you mention it, they’ll make sure to avoid that. They’ll go out of their way to not do that.
