Other than simply being an a****** and torturing for the sake of torturing, is there any goal involved here?

I bet the guards believe that prisoners who lack sleep will also lack the ability to coherently resist orders and are more malleable. These guys are dazed and confused most of the time.

There is always the guy that is so dazed confused that he'll snap and that will trigger a mass response of the guards. They don't care. That's part of the job and they blame the person that snapped.

Let me try to explain to you what happens when someone snaps in jail.

There's typically a delay of 2 to 3 minutes between the point of someone loudly, threatening violence or engaging in violence, at least in the jail I was in.

At that point you all have guards crowding at that door, but they don't come in for another moment until they get the order. They do not come in one at a time and they do not take a chance. They stage themselves with a large group, at least five but up to 15 to 20 of guards and then they rush.

When they filter through a choke point of beds or doors, it's like a clown car as one guard after another emerges. They will often precede it with a hit of pepper spray but not necessarily.

It's a rare occurrence. The prisoners know they don't stand a chance. So it really takes someone to snap and be stupid.

I saw it about once a week for 2 months. The same guy for three times. A prisoner stunk. Smelled like he bathed in his own shit. He refused to shower. The prisoners complained but nothing happened.

Remember we are 50 guys in a tight space. So the prisoners took it upon themselves to throw this guy in the shower and hose him down. He of course freaked out.

Here come the guards.

Good times!

It's very difficult to describe the level of crazy. He was one bunk over from mine. He was on the top bunk.

The stinky dude would trade a full meal for a root beer barrel. I had a bag of root beer barrels. I would give them out for reasonable smiles and nods or occasionally favors or I would trade them.

But he would trade his entire tray for a single root beer barrel. He was constantly asking me for them and I toss him one occasionally. But I had a limited supply, and you never know if the commissary has them the next week and I only get to order once a week.

He would gladly starve himself and waste away into his insanity. I tried to make a deal with him that he would not trade his tray to anybody else for root beer barrel, and I would give him a root beer barrel for free. I told him to eat his food. I did not want to see him starve himself and that's where he was going.

He agreed but then he couldn't handle the impulse and would then trade away his food anyway. And then after he did that he would ask me for a root beer bottle and I refused. I could not fall into his madness, at least I was not going to reward it. This was occasionally a loud argument.

The bottom bunk had this Hispanic dude who spent the first week going through heroin withdrawal. He was an older dude. Seriously respected. He had a huge group of people surrounding his bed at all times to perform whatever service he needed. And everyone was kind and polite about it.

The dudes performing the service were serious hardcore gang bangers. This particular cell block was the low end medical unit. We had the crazies in here. We had the people dying of cancer in here. And we had whatever random person they couldn't figure out where to put somewhere else. We had a lot of people right after they got pulled apart from a fight and needed some medical attention and then they landed here before they put them wherever they were really supposed to be. So we had both crips and bloods showing up at this guy's bed.

After a couple of weeks the Hispanic dude came out of his dazed and confused moments and realized the guy above him smelled like shit. And after a week of arguing about it they agreed for a fight.

The stinky dude was about 6'5 but rail thin. He danced around and pretended to know how to fight. He did not know. The Hispanic OG simply sat there calmly and tore up a sheet and wrapped it around his closed fists.

This is a jailhouse move, but it's also useful on the street. The point of this is to protect your knuckles so you don't scrape them up and get them bloody. You do not want to have any evidence of a fight on your knuckles on the inside of jail, and on the outside you would not want to leave any of your blood at the scene if you've got to punch and run.

After a fight the cell block immediately goes into lockdown and everybody has to line up by the bed and the guards and the warden come in and examine everybody's knuckles. If you have any damage on them you were part of the fight and into the hole you go.

When stinky guy saw Hispanic dude wrapping his knuckles he knew he was doomed. He didn't stand a chance against this guy. He was going to get killed.

Sticky guy backed down. He wasn't that crazy. There was a spark of some some self-preservation. Just not when it comes to his food. Or personal hygiene.

I have stories of both sides of that coin.

Another story is we are called up to line up for the styrofoam meal trays. Many of us are dazed and confused, drugged out of our minds on whatever the prison is prescribing that week. Not me, at least not for morning and noon, but my bunkmate was and he would often miss meals because it was really tough to rouse him to get into line.

The guy giving out the meals was a trusty. A prisoner with responsibility. He was big and mean and he got to keep all the meals that were not given out. He would call for lineup and if you were not in that lineup by the time he gave out the last meal you didn't get it. Not even if you were running 5 ft away.

No prisoner could pick up a meal for another prisoner.

You were going to starve and he was going to eat more or use that meal as barter for something else. That's how jail worked.

You want to fight? This really big muscular mean guy who has the backing of the authority of the guards? Nope. That's hole time and that's increased sentence time. Don't do it. Go hungry. Get weaker. Go back into your bed.

So I wrote up a note. I became a jailhouse snitch. I explained what moral hazard was and that the trusty had the incentive to withhold meals from people who were slow. I handed that to the guard that evening.

The rules were changed the next morning. The trusty was no longer allowed to keep any meals that were not given out and therefore he had no incentive to scream people to run lineup and then deny. Meals became a much more relaxed time and I had time to get the drugged old guy up to go get his food.

Problem solved, including reasonable logical guards.