Dear Reader,

Have you ever asked yourself what you’d do if you found yourself trapped on the wrong side of the prison fence? How would you survive? Who could you depend on? When everyone left you for dead, how would you provide for yourself? If you’re like the rest of us, you’d find a hustle. You’d endure. What other choice do you have? 

In this column, you’ll get the scoop on prison hustles and how to survive in the land of misfits and forgotten people. But first, a brief disclaimer: The following isn’t actually “legal” in prison. Institutions tend to frown upon the transfer of goods or services from one imprisoned person to another. Loaning, borrowing, or trading isn’t really condoned either. But we all know it happens.

That said, there are ways to make money in prison, and everyone who hustles does so at their own risk. 

Chucky told me that he liked being a dishwasher but that he made a few mistakes when he first started the hustle—namely an incident with Andre. 

“Why the hell do my dishes smell like state soap?” Andre yelled.  

“What did you want me to use?” Chucky asked.

Andre shoved the dishes at Chucky. 

“Tell me you didn’t use the soap on the sink.”

With any job comes responsibility, and according to Andre, Chucky failed at his responsibility to properly wash his dishes. 

“I wasn’t thinking,” Chucky told me. “I should’ve known better. He’d given me his leftovers. Chili, made with real onions and beef crumbles and a whole pack of jalapeños. There was shredded cheese, too. It smelled so good, and I was so hungry, so I rushed through the dishes.” 

Using the wrong soap was technically a small mistake but one Andre took pretty seriously. 

“Go get the bar of soap you used,” Andre said.

“The soap?”

“Yeah. You’re going to eat it.”

The dishes shook in Chucky’s hands.

“What?”

“If it’s good enough for you to wash my dishes with, it’s got to be good enough for you to eat—and you better use a new bar of soap to rewash my shit with!”

“I, I don’t have a new bar,” Chucky said. “That’s why I used the soap in the bathroom.”

“Not my problem,” Andre said. 

When you’ve got nothing else going for you, the dishwasher hustle can be a blessing. Instead of receiving money, dishwashers often get paid in meals. But the dishwashing’s got to be done right. 

“I’m always sure to keep plenty of dishwashing liquid now,” Chucky said. “Guys like their dishes clean. I also dry the dishes real good, too. That’s why guys look out for me. They know I ain’t got nobody outside the fence. Sometimes I’ll get a bowl with macaroni and cheese or some vegetables. Other times, I’ll get tossed a few ramen noodles in exchange for doing a bunch of dishes. At least I’m not starving to death. Dishwashing liquid is the cheapest thing on canteen.”

One thing to note: Andre still fired Chucky after making him eat a bar of soap. 

“I still got to eat that leftover chili, though. It was worth it,” Chucky said. “And once guys heard I didn’t complain about eating that bar of soap, they gave me a chance. Pretty soon I was washing everyone’s dishes.”

The dishwasher hustle isn’t for everyone. It’s often reserved for people who don’t have support on the outside. It’s also viewed as charity—and some people think doing someone else’s dishwashing makes them a “Do Boy,” otherwise known as a punk, flunkie, or prison wife.

“I’m thankful for it,” Chucky said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve left the chow hall hungry. Two pieces of bread, a slice of salami thinner than paper, and a child’s handful of cabbage. For dinner? They expect us to get full drinking water. So the more dishes I wash, the more I get to eat.”

Another hustle is cleaning bed areas, which requires sweeping and mopping bed areas. This has been Jim’s hustle for several years now. 

“I’m a bit of a neat freak, and I clean to have something to do,” Jim said. “Someone offered to pay me to clean their bed area. I figured, why the hell not?”

Jim has decades before he’s eligible for parole. 

“Prison has a way of making people on the outside forget about you. We’re all out of sight and out of mind. What’s a man to do? I’m not the only one who’s had to hustle for a living. Thirty bucks a month only goes so far. What happens when I need to buy something besides hygiene and coffee? The prison isn’t going to bless me with shoes. When it gets cold, they aren’t handing out thermals. If I want something besides the bare minimum, I have to get it off the land. So I clean bed areas. I choose to work all month, sweeping and mopping someone’s bed area in exchange for whatever someone’s willing to give.”

Prison hustlers often set their own prices, and Jim said he’s willing to accept “damn near anything.” This includes shoes or jogging pants. Once, a guy even offered him a colored pencil set worth 50 bucks if he cleaned his bed area for a year. 

“I jumped on that one,” Jim said, explaining that he’s used the colored pencils to make greeting cards. Even that’s turned into a hustle. He sometimes sells these greeting cards to make extra money. 

“Who knows, I might give up cleaning bed areas to become the next Disney,” Jim said. 

Chucky and Jim hustle their time, efforts, and sweat in exchange for a chance at something better for themselves behind prison fences. They perform menial tasks others prefer not to, and it gives them a sense of accomplishment. It also gives them a sense of pride not to have to resort to stealing, theft, or worse. 

“There’s a lot of bad shit I could get into,” Chucky said. “I’d much rather not. I just want to do better. That’s it.”

When asked why he cleaned bed areas instead of engaging in other behavior, Jim’s take was similar to Chucky’s. 

“I’m not much of a criminal,” Jim said. “I got caught. Now, this is my life. If the prison offered me half a chance to do anything other than kill time, I’d be all over it. So I live off the land like a farmer. I’m not hurting anybody.”

Prisons provide a bed, a roof, and three horrible meals a day. It’s subsistence living. At least prison hustles provide the opportunity for something better.  

The Right to Write (R2W) project is an editorial initiative where Prism works with incarcerated writers to share their reporting and perspectives across our verticals and coverage areas. Learn more about R2W and how to pitch here.