word messed up, didn't want to lose story, rough draft

   Josh Carlson’s young adult years were fun, but eventually everything comes to an end.

   “Before I went to prison I didn’t care about anything. I was partying, being bad and not smart at all. I was respected, though, because a lot of people were scared and knew what I was capable of,” Carlson said.

   He knew what he was doing was wrong but it didn’t matter to him at the time.

   “That was just how I lived my life. Everybody does it differently and that’s how I chose to,” Carlson said.

   His world changed when he got arrested for aggravated assault, which is a first degree felony, and found out he would be going to state prison.

   “I just got my mind right and had to stay focused. The more you think about the situation, the harder it is to deal with. You just have to be focused,” Carlson said.

   Carlson was closest to his mother, Lori Carlson.

   “When I found out he got arrested and would be going to prison, it was like an indescribable sense of anxiety and fear,” Lori said.

   First-degree felony prison terms range from five to 99 years. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but got out on parole. Parole allows prisoners to serve at least half of their original sentence.

   

   “I was in prison for like three years,” Josh said.

   He arrived at his first prison, the Holliday Unit in Huntsville, Texas, in August 2011. 

   “You have to be ready for anything. You never know what’s going to go on and you hear all these stories about prison so you just have to be prepared for what goes on,” Josh said.

    The Texas Department of Corrections has rules that are made to make inmates not want to come back.

   “The inmates were crazy. It’s a totally different world in there. Nothing in jail is the same as the outside world,” Josh said.

   To be a corrections officer in Texas, only a high school diploma is required.

   “Seventy-five percent of the guards were real controlling and acted like they ran you. They were rude and disrespectful, but some were super nice and generous and would sneak things in for us from the outside,” Josh said.

   Deaths from natural causes accounted for more than half of all deaths in jails.

   “The worst thing I saw was this guy that had a heart attack. An inmate went and started giving him CPR and it was working, it was bringing him back, but the guards came and told him to stop and that he wasn’t aloud to touch him. They said nobody was aloud to touch him, that they had to wait for medical to come. If they would have let him do the CPR he would be alive but since he couldn’t touch him, he died,” Josh said.

   Ninety percent of males in prison are in gangs, according to the www.ngcrc.com

   “Prison is just a different world. It depends who you are and how you handle it. For me, it was easy because I knew a lot of people had my back but I had to have a lot of people’s backs too. If a riot breaks out and your friends are involved, you have to go in and help, no matter what.” Josh said.

   Everybody learns differently in their life.

   “I realized I needed to change when I was in there. I was away from family and friends and I lost a lot. Whenever I saw the types of people in there, it just reminded me to not come back because a lot of them still had that attitude of not caring,” Josh said.

   Change is crucial for people if they don’t want to return to jail.

   “I think he learned from that experience because he knew he couldn’t keep doing the things he was doing and survive,” Josh’s grandmother, Carolyn Burt, said.

   Prison is made to help people, teach them lessons, and show that there are major consequences for breaking the law.

   “Some people learn the easy way and some people learn the hard way. I learned the hard way because there was no way that I was going to change if I didn’t do all this time. Some people have to learn hard the way,” Josh said.

Each correction facility has different rules. The Billy Moore Unit allowed inmates to be out of their cells from eight in the morning to 10 at night.

   “A typical day for me, I would wake up, go out to the yard for rec and play basketball for a couple hours, come back and watch T.V, work out, gamble, and just chill and talk with friends. Then at night whenever the shifts for the guards changed, I would wait for this one guard to come and talk to me and I would be up all night talking to her. I just had to always keep busy,” Josh said.

   Prison facilities in Texas give each inmate 50 dollars whenever they’re being released.

   “Getting released was a wonderful feeling, but I was nervous. It had been a while since I had been out and I didn’t want to slip up and do something wrong. I had to remember everything that I told myself while I was in prison. It was hard to stay right,” Josh said.

   Everybody that has been incarcerated for a long period of time has to adjust back to the free world once they are released.

   “When I first got out I met my family at the river walk in San Antonio. We went out to eat Mexican food and while I was eating a group of mariachis came up behind me and starting playing their music real loud. It was weird because I wasn’t use to anything like that at all. In prison you don’t just come up behind somebody without saying something,” Josh said.

      Sixty-seven percent of people go back on repeated charges within the first three years of being out.

   “I’m smarter, more wise and think before I act now that I have been out. I just do what I have to do to not go back,” Josh said.

   Prison can be very helpful in the long run.

   “He’s different now because he’s more calm, focused, enjoys his job, and makes new friends,” Burt said.

   Being in prison changed Carlson for the better.

   “My best qualities now are being real, good at basketball and I try to help people out even if I don’t know them. I try to help people become better and give advice whenever somebody has a problem,” Josh said.

   It can take some people longer than others to adjust once they get out.

   “It didn’t take long, I adjusted quick. I just had to think differently,” Josh said.

   Being gone for a while, things tend to change. Nothing stays the same and the world doesn’t stop for anybody.

   “The main thing that I noticed that was different whenever I got out was how people acted. Some people act like nothing bad could ever happen to them and they just don’t know. I try to tell them to stay straight because not everybody is built for prison,” Josh said.