When prisoners get busted for introducing contraband like illegal drugs in prison through the visiting room, correctional officials put the offenders in a dry cell. The dry cell is where prisoners suspected of ingesting balloons filled with drugs are held while prison officials make every attempt possible to retrieve the drugs before they enter the institution. "At FCI Fairton in New Jersey I was pulling little licks," our prisoner correspondent says. "Just getting some marijuana in through the dance floor. Swallowing balloons my girl would bring. Nothing major. Just trying to get my smoke on and make a little commissary. But someone dropped a note on me and they threw me in the dry cell."
A dry cell is a cell with no toilet or running water. The prisoner is stripped down to his underwear and put in the dry cell with no mattress and only a sheet to spread on the metal bed frame. The purpose is to prevent a prisoner who ingested balloons from being able to discard them. A video camera is set up to tape the prisoner 24/7 and a guard is posted outside the cell monitoring the prisoner. Prisoners can remain in these conditions for 3 to 5 days or until they defecate numerous times and the balloons are either discovered or the suspected offender is cleared of wrongdoing.
"Luckily when they threw me in the dry cell I wasn't dirty. My girl brought some balloons but she left them in the car. Told me something didn't feel right. I was mad at the time but glad later when they took me out of the visiting room." The prisoner says. "Still I was stripped down to my underwear, videotaped and in the dry cell, shitting like a motherfucker, for 3 days so I could get out. When I had to shit they would bring a little bedpan with a small clear garbage liner in it. I had to squat down in front of the Lieutenant, the C/O and the video camera and shit. Than tie off the bag and hand it to them throuw the metal slot in the door so they could examine it to make sure there were no balloons in it." These are drug war tactics from the frontline in the belly of the beast.