Behind The Prison Wall: Central Booking and Bullpen Therapy
Continuing the Behind The Prison Wall series, today is Central Booking and what we call Bullpen Therapy. Usually the first unfortunate step of the criminal justice procedure is directly after you are arrested by the cops. The most deflating feeling in the world is when the cops first place those handcuffs on you and put you in the back of that squad car. It seems like every possible person on the street is looking at you like some crazed criminal. You just want to shrink in the backseat and disappear. You can see the expression on their face like "Uh, Oh, they got themselves another one. " Or "I am sure glad its that nigga and not me" look. SMDH.
After being transported to the precinct, this is where the mental degradation begins. You enter a small cell and wait hours to get what they called "processed". That's your picture taken, you getting fingerprinted and your information ran through a state wide database to check for warrants and any outstanding judgments against you within the penal system. After you're processed, you are then taken down to Central Booking at 100 Center Street. Once in Central Booking, you're waiting hours, sometimes days, to see a judge so he/she can review your case and charges against you. When the judge reviews your case either 6 primary things can happen.
1. The judge can outright release you because there's not enough evidence to substantiate the charges.
2. The judge can release you on your own "recognizance" with the understanding that you will return to face the charges at a later date on your own with no stipulations binding by the court or prosecutor.
3. The judge can set bail on your case which means you have to pay the amount the judge sets in order to be released and have to come back to
court on designated days.
4. The judge can outright deny you bail altogether and hold you until your next court date.
5. The judge can make you an offer of time served or a certain amount of jail time and the sentence can be accepted or rejected. In which you as a detainee can be held until the final decision is made on the case.
6. And then there's alternative sentencing that can help you avoid jail time: drug and treatment programs, probation, etc.
Now when you're in Central Booking they put you in a cell that is jammed packed with sometimes 25 to 50 people in ONE cell. In this cell there's ONE phone that you can use to call your family or loved ones. Now mind you it's one payphone that everybody is trying to use at the same time. And because it's a payphone, how many people actually carry change on them to use a payphone? Not many. So that's the first obstacle. Getting some change in order to even make the call to your family. And here's where the C.O.s play the mental game with you. Some call it a hustle, I call it "damn dog, just imagine if this was you. Put the shoe on the other foot and tell me how you would feel". Cause the C.O.s take advantage of the fact that you don't have change to use the phone, and will hustle you and charge prisoners 10 or even 20 dollars for 4 quarters. 20 dollars for 4 quarters!!! Come on, are you serious? But many prisoners don't really have a choice because it's either pay the 20 dollars for the 4 quarters to use the phone, or risk not getting a chance to use the phone at all. And the C.O.s knowing that prisoners are trying to get bailed out and releasesd, can easily make this money on a daily basis by pimping the phones if prisoners want to be released. The C.O.s call it hustling because most detainees don't have change to use the payphone.
The second part of the mental games they play to degrade you is the type of food the feed you while in Central Booking. Now mind you, there's a possibilty that you can be held in this one cell up to 48 or 72 hours. And the only thing they feed you for days is what we call, "bullpen sandwiches". Bullpen sandwiches is hard, stale cheese sandwiches that will have you shitting for days after eating it. These cheese sandwiches are so bad, that the cheese on the bread ain't yellow no more! The cheese is fucking orange!!! And God forbid the alternative sandwich is peanut butter and jelly. The peanut butter is watery. I've never even seen watery peanut butter before. smdh...
So that's just the food and trying to get a phone call. On top of all that, while you crammed into these little cells, you have to deal with what seems like every homeless person in America that's locked up with you in that cell. Cause sometimes it smells so bad you just want to throw up. Imagine an odor of urine, feces, feet that smell like nacho cheese, week old body odor and a really bad breath scent all wrapped up in one might smell. Now you get the point? And everybody is laying on the cold floor cause they haven't slept for hours. Remember you also haven't bathed in days so your own personal hygiene at some point becomes questionable. It can end up quite funky in those cells.
Now the term "Bullpen Therapy" is really serious. Bullpen Therapy is a combination of all those things and more that is designed to mentally, physically and spiritually wear you down. Once you go back and forth for months to court with no decision made on your case, you begin to consider the easiest way to put a criminal case behind you. After getting up at 330 in the morning in order to be at court by 9am is draining. You have to get up, eat breakfast, get stripped searched, sit in a cell for hours, get shackled, put on a school bus with other prisoners (which during the winter time the bus seats are so cold that it feels like you're sitting on the chair bare-ass) and in the summertime you can't even breathe cause there's no air circulating in the bus. You get driven to court, unshackled, have to sit in another cell for several more hours, see your lawyer, see the judge and back to your cell again to wait for many more hours just to be taken back to Rikers Island.
And this procedure goes on and on each time you have to come to court. And God forbid you are on trial. That means you have to go through that procedure every single day back to back. They call it "Bullpen Therapy" because sometimes it wears on you so much that it breaks you down and makes you take plea bargains just to stop from going through the hardships. At some point mentally and spiritually you want to get the case over with anyway that you can. And sometimes you will take a sentence and not even be guilty of the charges just because you've been going thru this process for 8, 9 or 10 months. Then there's the family problems and issues at home that also are weighing on you to make these decisions as well.