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Clothing

Interview with Larry, Tawnie and Henry

JM: What clothes could you have brought in to wear in the jail (underwear, socks, etc.)?
Larry: you only had county issue. Orange pants orange top and orange tshirt and sandles.
Tawnie: Sweatshirt, pants, t-shirt, socks and shower shoes or slip in boat shoes. Dresses were also given out to sleep in. They were like a potato sack with pockets that were about knee length.
Henry: NOTHING. they give you clothes to wear. they give you underwear worn by hundreds of other people .DISGUSTING. they make you wear the same underwear for a week then they wash them once, and give them to someone else.GROSS.this is for SAN MATEO county only, placer was different. in San mateo on the working side, if you worked laundry like me, then you had fresh clean clothes every day. people would line up with commissary for me to trade for socks, underwear, pants, shoes, shirts, etc..you name it, i had it.

JM: If you had a set uniform, what did it look like? Please be specific about each piece of clothing issued to you.
Larry: Orange pants orange top and orange tshirt and sandles.
Tawnie: Everything was orange, except the sports bras (white) and the underwear (brown). There were targets over the heart and on your back on the t- shirts and sweatshirts, and on the pants, there were targets over the femeral arteries at the hip.
Henry: main jail was orange jump suit that said san mateo county on back . this was not a one piece suit. it was specifically pants and an orange shirt also an orange top that went the shirt to match the pants. on the working side, we had white drawstring type starched pants.with white tops and orange shirt underneath. orange socks and blue or white karate shoes.(slip ons) and of course everyone had shower sandles.

JM: Were there any assigned clothes in high demand that an inmate should look for when getting clothing assigned?
Larry: everyone wore the same thing. They did have some funny looking tennis shoes you could get but you had to have a shoe crono which is a document stating that yu have foot problems like flat feet or something to that affect.
Tawnie: New sweatshirts and medium-sized t-shirts were in high demand. ALso the flip slop shower shoes instead of the orange slides were more popular. The orange slides were made with petroleum, and smelled like gasoline.
Henry: yes.. fresh and new clothes. go find someone who works in the laundry ASAP and work out something with them. trade trade and trade some more. you are only allowed a specific number of socks and shirts , pants, etc..make sure they are always new. especially your underwear. look for a bigger size than you normally wear, they make the clothing a bit small on purpose.

JM: Was the clothing different between men and women?
Larry: the women wore the same thing that the men did from what I saw.
Tawnie: Men were issued 2 scrub tops, women had two dresses and a sports bra, but all received one pair of pants, two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, one sweatshirt and one t-shirt, pair of slide in boat shoes and one pair of shower shoes.
Henry: i forget what the woman wore, they were housed separately like most jails. but you always see woman when you go in the clinic for medicine or for a shot, i think they wore the same thing but i think they had striped socks or striped somthing.

Advice from ex-inmates of the San Mateo County Jail