Shakedowns, the hole, and lockdowns
The three ways the institution reaches into your day without notice, and what each one costs you.
Shakedowns
Your area gets searched, with no notice and no particular reason. Property that is not authorized is confiscated. Property that is authorized is sometimes confiscated anyway. Things get left in a mess.
There is no point being upset about it and no recourse worth pursuing. Keep your area such that a shakedown finds nothing interesting.
The special housing unit
The
It is isolation. No property, no programming, restricted phone and mail, limited out-of-cell time. Programming stops, which means your
Pending-investigation placement is the part nobody expects: you can be put there without having done anything, while something else is sorted out, for weeks.
Lockdowns
The compound closes. No movement, no work, no rec, meals delivered to the units, and often no phone. It can last a day or several weeks.
Lockdowns follow incidents, staffing shortages, and sometimes nothing identifiable. How often this happens is the single largest variable in quality of life between one low and another, and it is worth finding out about your facility specifically.
Facility-dependent: some lows lock down at the slightest provocation and some almost never do. Mine was the former, and it colors everything.
Lockdowns are tracked here: each facility's page shows current operations, and the alert service emails your family when your facility locks down and when it comes back.
The economy at a low
Everything in the general economy runs here. The difference is the fence, and the fence is priced in.
Hand the rest of this site to your family
You will not be able to look things up once you're inside. They can, and this is where: everything written for the one waiting — a twelve-part guide to mail, visiting, money, and your release date, plus their own FAQ and checklist. Alongside it, a guide to every facility with email alerts when visiting stops, the support group directory, calculators for your release math, and free answers when they have questions.
Send them the link before you report, not after they can't reach you.
These pages cover the general rules. Your situation has details they don't. Email me a question. Answers are free, and "you don't need to pay anyone for this" is my most common answer.
I answer in the order received, usually within a couple of days. I have a day job. If your situation genuinely needs more than an email, I take a limited number of consults, so say so and we'll work it out.
Somebody else just found out they got a low. Pass it on.