[Layzie]

"-Did you have to work while you were in prison?"

When I first got to prison, I was in a high security area and nobody worked. After about 3 or 4 months I was transfered to a unit where everyone had a job. I worked in the warehouse where all the supplies and food were stored. In order to work there my criminal record had to be thoroughly screened because I had to go outside of one of the gates.



"-What kind of jobs were there?"

Kitchen work, just general janitorial work, and if you were low enough security, there were jobs in the property department (packing up inmate's stuff), commissary (bagging up food people ordered), warehouse, and there were a couple people who worked in the admin building where the warden's office was. There were also people who cut grass and did landscaping.



"-If you didn't work, would you have to serve a larger %age of your sentence before you were eligible for release?"

The thing is, if you didn't want to work, then you probably wouldn't have been transfered to a work unit. You could stay in a section of the prison where you didn't have to work, but this makes time go by very slowly. Technically you could lose your good time if they gave you some kind of charge for refusal for work, but chances are they would just transfer you, and maybe give you some time in the hole. Most people have to serve 85% of their sentence in Virginia.



"-In a situation like this, if you refused to work or refused to follow some other rule and were willing to accept the punishment, would you be subject to harassment from the guards or other prisoners?"

No, probably not. It's not that big of a deal.




"-Is the answer to these questions different in "prison" as opposed to "jail"?"

In the jail I was in, there was a "trustee" unit where the workers mopped floors and did kitchen work. But all jail is is a holding area for people either waiting for court, or people waiting to get transfered to prison. In Virginia jails, the most amount of time you can serve is 1 year. However, you can sometimes wait longer than 1 year to be transfered to prison if they are really backed up.