Welcome to Club Fed

If prison is so tough, why do white-collar criminals often leave looking better than when they went in? It's not because they have personal trainers. It's because they've been working outside cutting lawns and doing other grounds-keeping on the military base next to the prison camp. And they have avoided the five-martini lunches and the after-work scotch. And quite frankly, they have exercised more than ever before. It's not uncommon to come out twenty or thirty pounds lighter and with a nice tan. Then, of course, people say, 'I want to go to Club Fed.' There's a different sort of vanity in prison, though. People shave their heads and grow beards. You have CEOs growing ponytails down to their butts. A lot of guys let it hang out. There's almost a relief that you don't need to worry about your appearance. You don't have to shave every day. The only time you worry about how you look is on visiting days. I decided I wasn't going to get my hair cut the whole time I was there. That lasted a month. My girlfriend saw me and said, 'You look like Hell.'

How was the food? The meals were calorically adequate. High in fat. High in carbohydrates. The kitchen cooked with a lot of distressed items. I remember we got fifty-kilo bags of flour once that had survived a truck wreck. At the commissary you could buy Doritos and Fig Newtons and things like canned tuna and pasta to make your own meals. It's amazing how creative inmates can get with hot water and a microwave. There was also a thriving black market. You could buy fruits, veggies and meat from the inmates who worked in the chow hall. But if you got caught, you could be shipped to a medium-security facility.

Did you keep up with current events? You're not allowed access to the Internet, so newspapers are a big thing. I read The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today every day. You learned who subscribed to what and passed it around. I didn't watch much TV. I limited myself to 60 Minutes and the news. Most guys watched a lot of sports. Toward the end of my sentence, the staff started showing movies. They were edited for airline use, so the swearing and sex were taken out, but they kept the violence in, which I thought was kind of ironic.

How did you learn what other inmates were in for? This is a touchy subject. Technically, anybody who has a drug charge and is doing less than ten years has cooperated with the federal government. They're snitches. And the number one rule in prison is you don't rat. So inmate protocol is never ask anybody a direct question about his crime. You volunteer information and the other person is expected to match it. If I say what I'm in for, then you say what you're in for.

So what were you in for? I staged an aircraft accident and filed a fraudulent insurance claim. I plead guilty to one charge of mail fraud.

What's the main thing you wish someone had told you about prison? I wish I had understood more about reconstructing my life on the outside, because that's the biggest challenge: starting over. People expect to step back in their old life, and the fact is it doesn't happen. There are a number of social biases against people who have transgressed, as there should be. I wish I had known more about how to deal with my shame, how to present myself as someone who was worthy of another chance.

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com) is a senior writer at Fast Company. To read part one of this interview, "From the Penthouse to the Big House," look in the September 2002 issue of Fast Company. Visit Davrie Communications on the Web at www.davrie.com