Let’s say that you have a friend or a family member who is incarcerated and now you are curious about their showers and toilets. You may wonder whether their showers and toilets are decent. Let’s read some information about Prison showers and toilets below according to some online sources.
Prison Showers
According to the Prisoner Resource site, here is the information about Prison Showers. Showering facilities are usually the same amongst dorms and called based housing. Usually, you will find that showers are of the single-head variety, where the prisoner is able to close a shower curtain or close a swinging door for privacy.
There are some cases where shower rooms are present and it consists of a room with four or more shower heads that can be used by some prisoners at one time. In this case, usually prisoners try to shower alone or with a friend or two friends. In prison movies and tv shows, you may often see that they portray shower rooms as places for violence and sexual assault, but in a fact it is often not the case.
Let’s say that in the prison there are shower stalls and assume there is no one who has left a shirt or towel on the door to the shower stall which means they are about to take a shower. If so, a prisoner is able to walk up and place his clothes and towel on the swinging door and take a shower there. However, if there is clothing on the door, the prison is recommended to wait until the owner of the clothes is done with their shower or the prisoner can ask who’s items they are to check whether they are in the housing unit. It is because sometimes prisoners reserve showers and then leave for quite some time out of ignorance.
Usually, most prisoners will try to use the showers alone. However, if it is close to lockdown or in the evening when the showers are busier, it is normal to take a shower in tandem with a friend, like in a gym shower room, where people take a shower with others after a workout.
In prison, people are very territorial. It is more common when forced to shower with others than you shower with someone that you know.
Same as a lot of areas of prison life such as searches and the monitoring of communications, when prisoners use the restroom and take a shower, it is just one of those areas where finally you will be used to. At first, prisoners may feel weird, but eventually, it will not be an unusual thing anymore for them.
Prison Toilets
And here is the information about toilets in prison according to the Prisoner Resource site. There is one toilet in every prison. Let’s say that you are housed in a cell. If so, it is better if you use the toilet when your cellmate is not present. If it is an emergency where you have to go to the toilet when there are your cellmates, you are able to hang a sheet up for privacy.
How about the condition of the toilet? Sometimes, the toilets are of the porcelain variety and sometimes they are the stainless steel sink or toilet variety. Now, there are more federal prisons which are installing push-button flush systems where prisoners are able to only flush the toilet once every five minutes. Let’s say that the button is pushed twice in a five-minute period. If so, the system will flush a second time, but the toilet will lockout for an hour.
If there is a prisoner who needs privacy when he or she uses the toilet, they will wait until their cellmate is out and put a blocker up in the window so that they can have complete privacy. Usually, the blocker is made of cardboard or pieces of paper which are placed in the small window of the door or a towel hung over the door and window. Technically, prisoners are not permitted to block the cell door window when they are using the toilet. However, most prison guards will be okay when they know the prisoners cover up half of the window with a piece of folded-over paper or a piece of cardboard.
The use of toilets in dorm settings is usually a little bit less private because the toilet consists of a row of toilets and urinals along a wall. Sometimes, there are barriers on the side of the toilets and there are also swinging doors in front of each toilet for giving additional privacy. Usually, this kind of toilet can be accessed 24 hours a day and it does not use the time-lock variety.
Toilet facilities can also be found in other areas around the prison such as Health Services, Education, Recreation, Psychology, Chapel and some other areas.
Prison Laundry
Now, how about the laundry of the prisoners? Here is the explanation about prisoner laundry according to the Prisoner Resource site. In 2011, President Obama issued Executive Order 13423 where it makes all federal agencies reduce water consumption by 2 percent each year. So, there are a lot of federal prisons which are phasing out regular washing machines and dryers. In their place have come large, institutional washing machines and dryers which all prisoners are required to use.
Depending on the federal prison size, usually inmates are assigned a laundry number and a laundry bag with their number attached to it. On the assigned days, they are able to bring their dirty clothes in their laundry bag and Laundry Services will handle washing and drying.
There are some federal prisoners who prefer to pay someone in their housing unit or a laundry worker to wash their clothes in the housing unit or to wash it separately from others inside Laundry Services.
Let’s say that the Laundry Services gives you the wrong size of clothing. If so, you are able to exchange them. At most federal prisons, Laundry Services accept clothes exchanges on the days that they wash laundry bags where usually it occurs in the mornings.
