I love books, movies, and TV shows about prison life.  The characters in these stories are remarkable, compelling, and often heart wrenching.  Some prisoners are wrongly incarcerated and some aren’t.  While others appear heroic and shown to have a sense of right and wrong, the most memorable are vile creatures and usually they’re the guys running the hoosegow.  Still, no matter what, I’m never, ever, going to put myself in a position where I have to go to prison.  I would not last long.

This awareness of the importance of law abidance began when I saw the movie “Papillon” in 1973. The movie starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. They served their sentences together on a dreadful prison island. No way, Jose, was I going to have to resort to eating insects to survive or would I if ever in that situation.  I vowed back then to never have to find out.

The 1974 movie “The Longest Yard” starring Burt Reynolds starts off with a chase scene and the ex-football star’s arrest.  I loved the movie but the implausible plot (playing football against the Guards as if that would ever happen), the murder of the character Caretaker and the sadistic Warden Hazen were enough for me to realize living behind bars would never, could ever, be this fun.  There were nut jobs and bad dudes in prison who could kill you just because you looked at them funny.  Plus, the Warden, the Guards, they have always had and always will have all the power.

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and used to look longingly at Alcatraz Island.  I would think about what amazing views the prisoners had of the city, not realizing  then what the total isolation must’ve done to the men who were incarcerated there.  When Clint Eastwood’s 1979 flick, “Escape from Alcatraz” came out, the scene where Doc cuts his fingers off with a hatchet because the Warden has taken away his painting priviliges stood out.  Without painting what did Doc have use for his fingers anymore?  That’s desperation caused by being locked up in a cell in a maximum security prison  on a rock in the middle of the ocean with almost no hope for escape.  No thank you!

My favorite movie of all time is the “Shawshank Redemption.”  But, there is no way I’m swimming through 500 yards of sewage pipe to reach freedom.  I can dream about living in Zihuatanejo with my best friend but the shit the character Andy Dufresne endures would break any man.  I would’ve been broken the first time I was assaulted by The Sisters and not even the murder of Tommy Williams, my ticket to proving my innocence, would compel me to do anything but curl up in a ball and cry and wish I had been the one shot.

Speaking of being broken,  I was a regular viewer of the the HBO series, “Oz.”  I still have nightmares about the battles for power and survival amid the warring factions and the explosive acts of retribution inside Emerald City.  The character’s Chris Keller and Vernon Schillinger were by far the most scary to me.  No, I never, ever, want to meet men like these two in prison or anywhere else for that matter.

I just finished reading “Orange is the New Black”, a New York Times best selling memoir by Piper Kerman. You may have read the book or watched the Netflix series on television.  If you haven’t, Kerman spent a year in a Federal penitentiary for women and wrote an unforgettable story of female bonding and survival. This book was a striking reminder of why I try to live my life never doing something stupid enough to go to prison, ever. I’m not judging anyone who has made such a mistake. I just value my freedom way too much and prison life will never be appealing to me and shouldn’t be to anyone unless you’re reading, watching or hearing someone else’s story.