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Interview with Victor and Mike

JM: How many different blocks were there?
Victor: I think 8. But it could have been 6.
Mike: In this jail there were a total of 10 blocks. Two on each floor and there were five floors. It was not a very large facility.

JM: Did they have names? If so, what were they?
Victor: They have a number and a side. Like 5 Left and 5 Right.
Mike: Just like 1a and 1b etc. No other specific names.

JM: Which types of inmates were housed in the different blocks?
Victor: There was a block for rapists and snitches which was split with the intake for new prisoners - 2 Right. 2 Left was solitary confinement, and I spent 28 days there. 3 Left was general population. 3 Right was immigration. 4 Left also general population. 4 Right was females. 5 Left also general population. 5 Right was trustees. Sometimes the floors changed, which happened with the females and the trustees various times. You can communicate through the ventilation ducts on your side of the jail, for example, if I'm on 5 left and in cell 15 I can yell down to 3 left and if they are in cell 15 they can hear me.
Mike: Everyone was housed together. There was very little differentiation. There was one tier for trusties and one for illegal immigrants waiting to be deported but that was it. Rapists murderers drug addicts and robbers all lived together.

JM: What do you remember being the nicest and worst parts about the different blocks?
Victor: The trustees had it much better, because they were already sentenced, usually to county time under a year, and they had a better quality of living. The worst part is general population, when you get crammed in with a bunch of loud mouthed animals and you have to negotiate the politics.
Mike: They kept me on the same tier the entire time except my first few days. On my first night i was held by myself in what they called ad seg, which is where they held the guys who had violated some rules. That was a terrible place. The guys who were there yelled and screamed all night long and my cell smelled like urine. the next few days were spent in a cell with two other guys right near a guard booth on suicide watch in a cell with another guy in the same predicament. The tier I was on most of the time was okay. The food is the worst thing of all. I wouldn't give it to my worst enemy.

Read about telephone access in the Sussex County Jail