True Stories of Doing Time: Entry One

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True Stories of Doing Time: Entry One:
by Terry Chandler (TC29)

So, what is it about prisons and people who are doing time in prisons that is so fascinating to those of you out there in the free world? There must be a fascination, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many programs about it on TV.

Would you like to know what intrigues me? The world that you live in out there. I’ve been locked up for just over 26 years straight so far and the world has completely changed since I’ve been in prison. I have never seen or used the internet myself, I was still using a pager when I got locked up, and I wouldn’t have a clue how to operate a smart phone?

I started out serving two separate prison sentences at the same time, a federal sentence of 212 months for “felon in possession of a firearm”, and a state sentence of 394 months for “first degree murder”. I was in the federal prison system until I expired that sentence and then I was extradited directly to the state prison system to finish out the remainder of my state time, and that is where I’m now at.

People write about all sorts of different things and since I tend to have a lot of free time on my hands, I thought, why not write about my prison experience thus far? Some of what I share with you will be extremely comical, yet other things may be very disturbing. There is nothing fun about being in prison,… you simply learn how to adapt in order to survive when serving a long sentence as I’ve been doing. The one thing I want you to know is that I will always keep things real with you!!!!!

When I got off of con air and got on the prison bus to go to Lompoc Federal Penitentiary, I was under the impression that I was going to a medium security federal prison. When the bus pulled up outside FCI Lompoc (which was the medium security facility) I looked out the window and thought to myself, “this might not be too bad”, as it looked like a college campus. When the guard unlocked the gate and started calling names, I kept waiting for my name to be called but it never was. When the guard got done calling names and locked the gate again he said something I will never forget. He said, “The rest of you are going across the street to USP Lompoc, the most violent penitentiary on the west coast, there are more stabbings, rapes and murders there than all the other prisons on the west coast combined”. At this point I had never really been to prison, I’d done time in a prison work camp and been in the county jail for extended periods of time but I had no idea what to expect and I was scared shitless!!!!!!!!! When the bus pulled up in front of the prison all I saw was flat grey concrete and shiny razor wire fences everywhere. The guards came out and surrounded the bus with shotguns and assault rifles and we were then shuffled in leg shackles and belly chains through the gates and down a gravel road, down old cobble stone steps and into the receiving center which looked like a dungeon. Keep in mind that USP Lompoc was built in the 1940’s and it has the feel of a very old prison that has been through a lot. After being processed I was taken to my living unit. The first time I stepped into the main corridor I was stunned at how big the place was. The main corridor is a quarter mile long from one end to the other and all the living units and most everything else branches off from the corridor. When we stepped into my living unit I saw that it was huge!!!! Once I got to my cell I remember thinking to myself, “now my time has really begun”.