There are going to be three or four moments when you will be absolutely scared during weekend jail. The first day will be one of them.

You will have to report to the jail on the date and time specified when you were convicted. As part of my rules “that kept me safe and respected” – I can’t stress the next point enough;

DO NOT BE LATE.

You should receive some paper work saying what you can and cannot bring into jail with you.  Take the bare minimum with you. Enough money to get yourself home (if you live far away) and identification. I also brought a credit card.

Intake

You’ll walk into the jail and sit in a waiting room until your paperwork is processed. This took about an hour for me. Depending on your intake time, you will likely be seated with other people. Many times, there will be other inmates who are agitated, drunk or even on drugs. It’s best to keep to yourself and don’t  involve yourself with other people’s issues.

You’ll be brought through a metal detector and then brought to your locker. A locker will allow you to put your personal belongings in it – jeans, shoes, shirts, underwear and anything else you brought. We were allowed to bring cellphones into the lockers as long as they were turned off. You’ll enter a code and that will be your locker for the duration of your stay.

You’ll then be strip searched. It sucks, an is embarrassing, but it’s the guards job so just ignore it. They have seen more bum holes and penis’s then you can ever imagine so don’t worry about it. It takes 30 seconds.

Holding Cell

You’ll be held in a group holding cell with other inmates. I was shit scared and didn’t know what to expect. I thought for sure I was going to have to fight (I’m not a fighter), but turns out its pretty calm. No one wants to get into more trouble at “weekend jail”. I didn’t look at the floor, but I didn’t look directly at people either. People here can be easily agitated, so its best not to stare.

“The Range”

Most everyone in weekend jail is held on a “range”. I was always on a range of either 20 to 40 people. The max I ever saw on a range was 42 (There are only 40 bunks, so you can imagine that some were sleeping on the floor), and the least I ever saw was 6.

You’ll need to get your own mattress, and if you are not there on the first day or people have already setup their bunks – it’s likely they have already taken a mattress.

Don’t be intimidated by others that have mattresses. You’ll need to do two things –

1) Tell the guard(s) that you can’t find a mattress – they will go around and look for one for you and tell one of the inmates.

2) Ask the inmate yourself. I would recommend this way first. Get your balls up and ask someone that has two mattresses. Be courteous, it’s likely they will give you it without issues.  I always just said “Hey man, I gotta grab your mattress … ”  They don’t want issues with the guards and the less the guards are around their beds, the better.

Other Notes

You’ll probably be taken to “medical” to be checked out for problems, medical, mental, etc. Takes another hour or so depending on how many new people are there.

Weekend jail is a big waiting game. You sit and wait. That’s it.