 Hello everyone, welcome to today's sit down video. So after my last video showing all my scars on my head I've got a few requests to talk about my prison experience. So If anyone has been living under a rock or they only just started following me or doesn't know my background I'm an ex gang member, you know I used to deal drugs take drugs be involved with organized crime and fighting and violence and all those things that My environment led me into Went down the wrong track for a while ended up going to prison got out of prison got sober went vegan turned into an activist Turned my complete life around in it. Like that's the short part of it But in particular in this video, I want to talk about my prison experience What what's my experiences with the system have been yada yada yada? We won't go into detail about too many specifics, but we'll just talk generally about my experience personally so I've been in and out of you know, just Lock up, you know where they lock that you might get arrested for like Driving drunk or getting in a fight or something. They throw you in overnight. They release you on bail You'll have your bail conditions. You'll have to go to court, you know for about a year You might they might release you with certain bail conditions not to drink alcohol not to Hang around a certain place and then you'll go to Court and what they'll do at the court is they'll sentence you you might get a suspended sentence I've got plenty of chances basically for you know, just Maybe an assault here and there maybe drunk and disorderly here and there maybe driving A car without a license here and there driving disqualified You know, so they'll hand down like a suspended sentence or something lighter Just to give you warnings and I'll be on a good behavior bond for a year Most of my teenage years in adulthood. I was on some type of good behavior bond some type of bail agreement something like that Now I myself Without giving too much away have been pretty was pretty lucky pretty smart. Um got out of places pretty quick didn't get myself into too much trouble and Was good at keeping my mouth shut uh didn't agree with snitching on anyone that wasn't I I morally didn't think that that was the right thing to do if you're involved in that type of world I didn't think it was right to tell on your friends or tell on anyone I didn't even tell on my enemies. So that was the way I I did things it come to the point where um things got a little bit More serious. I was defending myself You know had to I believe I had to carry a firearm to defend myself a lot of dangerous people around me So I had a firearm down my trousers And I got caught with that firearm So basically straight after being caught without gun They threw me straight in prison now because I had such an unstable psychological state They threw me into a section of the prison where they could keep watch on me now This particular part of the prison is for punished prisoners. It's called g division. This was in yalla prison in Australia called g division um Now they either put you there if you're on suicide watch There's cameras in there. They can watch a 24 seven or if they have to separate you from the other prisoners for some reason You might be uh, you might have the whole prison after you there might be some type of violence You know that that is threatened upon you And the guards might take you there without your Without your consent kind of to protect Your life from the other prisoners or that you might just be a prisoner who was You know is being punished for some reason you might have Hit a prison guard or been in a fire or stabbed someone and they'll put you in G division. Okay. Now g division is just it's solitary confinement basically And you have very few Personal items in there like you will get a toothbrush. You'll get like A few things that you're allowed to use You don't have any tv You might be able to listen to the radio if the guards let you you have a real shitty bed They took all my clothes off me no shoes no clothes. So they just put me in this sort of like a smock um no underwear nothing like that and This is where they put me for my first prison experience now. This was one of the most Sort of horrible experiences I've had Because I was before this I was on the run. I was on all these drugs partying Everything was going a million miles an hour. And then they threw me in this in g division Everything sort of come to an ahead and I was just like trying to Process everything and my grandfather had just died. So I was mourning my the loss of my grandfather and I I couldn't even go to his funeral It was really upsetting and all the coming down off all these drugs thinking about all the things I'd done thinking about all the Stuff I put my family through all the people that I'd hurt and You know what when you're coming down off of drugs that that was really intense and really scary And the prison guards will come in twice a day for a cell check Not like a normal cell check in in the normal wing of the prison This was like really crazy that'd be 10 guards. There'd be one more predominant lead guard And you'd have to be standing with your hands by your side You have to have your bed pack folded and made in a certain way The whole cell had to be spit-shined clean. So that would you didn't get any cleaning materials You used had to use toilet paper and water to to mop the floors To get all of the stainless steel on the toilets and on the on the walls Without fingerprints if they find a fingerprint, you're in trouble They find a crumb you're in trouble if they find a piece of dust You're in trouble if your bed pack isn't folded properly, you're in trouble Now I remember I was standing there and I went to scratch my nose And that's when I knew that this wing of the prison was really serious because the guards smacked my hand down He basically said if you move your hand again, I'm going to knock you out Now I've heard stories about that wing of the prison where you know guards have just gone to town on prisoners for Minor things for not following instructions. They might get their head kicked in You know, I've heard terrible stories of people being tied up and bashed in there You know that that's prison for you and that's that's the punishment unit of the prison now I wasn't a punished prisoner. I was in there in suicide watch kind of thing They didn't they didn't think my my my psychological state was stable enough to put me in the main prison yet But come four or five days In this g division I've started to sort of come to I started to like the drug started to wear off a bit The coming down started to wear off I started to talk to the other prisoners through the walls and That was sort of explaining. This isn't what prisons like. This isn't what prisons like This is more of a military Sort of wing of the prison where punished prisoners go And what ended up happening was they ended up getting bail my my lawyer a fantastic fantastic lawyer He got he got me home detention bail So I was bailed to my house because I this was one of my first serious serious offences carrying a gun in Australia Is very serious You know, so they put they put me on home detention bail at my mum's house So my mum are a fantastic mother. She'd always got me she always supported me through these things and she got me on She got it approved to get me on house arrest at her household Now I was released from g divisions to to home and I was like, oh great. Thank god Thank god I'm out of there Obviously when I was on house arrest I was still involved with the gang still involved with alcohol use substance use You know, uh, you couldn't sort of pin me down. I was just really out of control Got back got back home got depressed against that a drinking taking drugs You know getting mates to come over and all that stuff So I was on house arrest for 18 months before my sentencing. So that was a long time too Now I'm going to skip all the things that happened on house arrest because we're just going to talk about Prison now house arrest is a type of prison It's where you know, you have an electronic bracelet around your ankle You can only go out if you have a very good reason to they might give you one shopping pass a week If you have a job that they approve you can go to work. I didn't work. Uh, I could have I should have Uh, sometimes they might give you a gym pass. I didn't get a gym pass Um, so I stayed home most of the time except for those one day or weeks where I'd go shopping for three hours and have to come back Um, so it's kind of like you're imprisoned in your house, which is kind of it's pretty psychologically tough But I prefer to be in prison in the house and then be in prison in prison After being to g division. I didn't want to go back there stuff that so anyways Um, 18 months on house arrest, you know, uh, I lost a bit away a lot of cool things happened to my consciousness I started getting involved with youtube and seeing a bit of the Uh, raw vegan youtubers out there. So I started to get seeds planted. I did juice fasting Still drinking alcohol and stuff still eating meat and that wasn't an ethical vegan But I was partying very hard. I was using a lot of drugs I was using a lot of alcohol to deal probably with the anxiety of going to prison maybe I don't know, but it was just a very uncertain time in my life And there was a lot of dramas going on and it was really really crazy come sentencing day I had a few sentencing that day. So what what happens is you go to court You think this is the big day you might have family there And you know, they say what we're going to adjourn you again And then you just like all that anticipation All of that anxiety and they adjourn it So they did that for many months adjourning adjourning adjourning now I remember the actual day that I went in to get sentenced. I'd been on about a seven day partying bender I was really coming down off of drugs and I was really really tired and I got my mate one of my mates who I've been partying with to take me to court And he sat he was the only support I had there my family had just had enough of me and they didn't come to To the day of my sentencing and I do not blame them because I was a prick But one of my good mates was there as my only support and I just remember looking at my lawyer And I thought oh, yeah, my lawyer's going to get me off of this, you know But it's a gun charge most people go to prison for But he kind of looked away, but And I got my sentence handed down now. My lawyer was a fantastic lawyer I always treated my lawyers with respect and they even said that to me like they said Wow, we're really surprised how much respect you talk to us with and they even used to come to my house and drop off documents. They were really They were really glad that I was a respectful client of theirs And I knew that because they're they're doing the right thing for me. So I'm going to treat them with respect I always thought it was foolish To to talk with disrespect to your lawyer. Come on. He's the one trying to fight for you to stay out of prison My lawyer couldn't keep me out of prison Even though I did 18 months home detention the judge agreed that I had an unstable psychological state because of my drug use He they agreed that there were certain I was in a certain situations where I had to defend myself But it wasn't enough to keep me out of prison and I was sentenced to 13 months prison where I had to serve a non-prol period of six months so That's where I went from from when I got that sentence handed down I had to go straight from the courtroom out the back arrested So they put handcuffs on me And they get me in a transport truck took me to a prison basically they took me to the One of the maximum security prisons called Adelaide Roman Center where I You know what they do is they strip search you they make you squat over a mirror So they make sure there's nothing inside of any of your cavities And they put you in the prison clothes and that's it you get Sent off you go into an induction unit where all the other prisoners are And And that's how a prison begins. So when you're an induction unit It's kind of like the first initial stage of the prison where You know, they're just working out where they're going to send you Sort of to get you used to the prison life at the start And you know like You're really starting to work out your rations because you haven't got your first Commissary where you buy stuff from the shop yet the prison store yet So you're just eating what they give you and which will be a sandwich or it might be some cereal That you have to fight for in the morning kind of thing They put the cereal on the bench and everyone's trying to get the cereal and some people don't get the cereal Some people will be getting breakfast for others because they think that they might not be able to get their own breakfast So they might be looking out for the other people in there Some people there's a lot of good people in prisons a lot of stand-up people who either there's a lot of good good things that happen in prison where Um, you know, just a lot of respect happens in there, too There's a lot of disrespect and a lot of people who have treated with contempt in there, too Which we can talk about but um, there's a lot of good-hearted Guys in there who look out for each other, which is really good to see Not a good place. You don't want to be there though. You really don't want to be there But anyway, when I got out of induction, you know, I was training fiercely. I was training two times a day um, I stayed completely away from drugs while in prison So this is where I got sober and I From a heavy drug user for 12 years to no drugs at all. I seen things very clearly in prison I seen where all the gang members were a lot of my about 13 of my gang members were in the prison system So when I went to the first prison, I had a lot of people around me that you know that I was cool with So that my my prison It wasn't very hard for me because obviously there was a lot of I had a lot of backup and You know, I had a lot of good people around me who would stick up for me if anything went down But but prison sort of opens your eyes up because you see all that that's where everyone goes basically and you know The food's really shit. And you know, you don't have many You don't have many freedoms. They lock you down twice a day in the in remand center They'll lock you down at 12 or something like that For lunch and then they'll lock you down at 4 p.m. For the rest of the day So it's a very early lockdown when you spend the rest of the time in the cell with your mate, you know You might be playing board games or you might be playing cards or you might be watching tv trying your best to have a laugh and After being at this prison for about eight weeks, I just started getting really comfortable there You know, it was kind of cool. And then I got moved on to a single cell and what the guards did As soon as I set up my single cell, they sent me straight off to Yatla prison Which is another maximum security prison Um in Adelaide and when you go to Yatla prison, you know, you're at a prison. It's a big like a big brick barbed wire shitty facility it really is especially uh the induction unit there It's crap the back the yard out there. It's just like you get a basketball court shitty old basketball court and that's it to do your You know your exercise on there's no no no weights no no weight room or anything like that the food is Extremely disgusting. I was eating um, you know Small little canteen like aluminium packs and of chicken and they might have sausages and all just really bad Bad meat, you know, not not that meat's ever good because obviously we know now that all meat's disgusting And it's a hacked up body of a suffered animal, but you know, they're not gonna give you anything gourmet in there You know, you might get an old orange shirt might be a little bit old and might an old apple You know shitty soggy sandwich Especially the food in g division when I was in there that was disgusting a soggy sandwich and old mandarin you get in the scraps in there um Yeah, but Yatla prison was the same you get the same little shitty shitty aluminium thing of the crappy food that they'd give you and you know And you just exercise where you could so you do pull-ups on the on the bunk bed or you do push-ups You put your feet up on the bed and you do like incline push-ups sit-ups all day In Yatla prison in the induction unit you'd shower three people in the shower So you wouldn't have a separate shower. It'll just be one shower room And yeah, I knew a few lads in there too, but then I got moved on to f division f division is a working unit and That's a little bit nice So everyone has a single cell in f division and you have to go out to work every day and You know, uh, yeah, I was there for a little while We could talk about the violence in prison, but it's pretty self-explanatory. Yeah There's violence in prison people might there's a lot of people that do dodgy things to other prisoners and they They might be dealt out some justice. They might get knocked out punched out. Some people are getting stabbed in there People might make a shank out of something and stab another prisoner Some people have a shank on them to defend themselves You know, some people might have Snitched on another prisoner or done something bad to another prisoner while they've been imprisoned and when they go to prison That they there might be dealt out some justice in that way Um So there are as many ways that justice gets dealt out in prison and no one talks to the prison guards about that because it's just You don't do that. Um, you don't do that in prison. You don't Snitch on your your enemies in prison. It's just not right Because everyone it's it's you you against the guards sort of thing. You're all in there together So you things get dealt out to each other, but you don't take that to the prison guards It's just unheard of otherwise you will go to a different place. Which is protective custody So that'll put you in protection from the other prisoners, which I didn't go to But many prisoners do go to protection and that's where the the rapists the the child rapists The the people who have been caught snitching on others will go there because they just can't go out into the mainstream Um or people that are just scared will go to protection. They're just afraid of going into mainstream will go to protection So yeah from from f-division. Yeah, like working unit. I was training better. There was a better gym in f-division It was fantastic I had a lot of other friends in f-division and I sort of kept my head down trying to train and get through jail and I was exercising doing burpees running Oh turning into a machine in there sober first time I'd been sober in 12 years Um, yeah, and then from there they moved me on to a medium security prison, uh, which is called mobilong And I went there and um, they could give you they gave they give you a little bit more freedom there You know, it's like a big school. So there's a big oval. There's a swimming pool You can you you're released in the morning and they let they lock you down at like 9 30 p.m Something like that. Uh, so you're out all day if you want I was training twice a day running around the massive oval getting sunshine got a mass got a beautiful tan Turned all brown. Um, I knew a few people in there too, but listen. I was trying to keep to myself I just wanted to do my jail and get out I didn't want to get into into all the riffraff in there Um, you know, I might have got I got into one fight in there about someone was disrespecting me in the yard And I you know got in the fire punched him in the head. Um, but I felt like I had to he was kind of Giving me a bit of shit in front of everyone and I didn't like that And yeah, that's that's basically the only shit that I got into in there The rest of the time just keeping my head down training exercising I was eating predominantly fruits and vegetables Because when I got into mobilong you can buy your own commissary So I was spending a hundred dollars a week on fruits vegetables raw vegetables raw fruits and then I was eating chicken breasts and Skin milk powder because I thought I needed to eat those meat products to get protein But I didn't know that you can get it from beans and legumes and rice and you know, like I just didn't know I probably could have ordered tofu in there drunk soya milk You could be a vegan in mobilong very easily you could be a vegan in um The maximum security prisons if you put the request in and they accept your request So if they recognize, I know in adelaide if they recognize that that you you're an ethical vegan for moral reasons They would try to try to they would probably treat that like as if you were a muslim and you didn't eat pork Uh, so if you wanted um, you know, or if you're a jewish if you wanted kosher if you wanted halal So that probably treat veganism like that in there, but you wouldn't get much probably You'd still be starving half the time But you can you can buy food in in You know in all the prisons you can buy your own food Um, so that's what I was doing so people kind of making fun of me. I was sitting there eating raw vegetables all day and You know, but I was getting really lean and really uh fit and Healthy to what I thought was healthy if I got rid of the chicken breast probably more healthy But yeah, and that that was my prison experience and I kept my head down And I remember like the last week of prison I was just they were saying I this is your release date But if you get into any Shit any drama any strife, you know, you know other prisoners might even want you to get into To drama they might even want you to get into a fight so you don't get released You know, that's what some people some people like that They might be doing five ten years and you might be going in for a year and they might not want you to You know, they might be like screw this guy. I don't want him to get out Not that that happened to me, but I probably it probably does happen But anyway, it's just a bunch of guys in there that have gone down the wrong track And you know, there's a lot of good people in prison There's also a lot of scumbags in there that might get moved to a protective custody There's a lot of you know Obviously there's a lot of evil people in the world and they're probably gonna end up in prison for doing something really really bad But for the most part, it's you know, it's people that have been caught for drugs or You know being caught for fighting or maybe being caught with a gun And you know, it's just the world that they've been brought up in the environment They've been brought up in and then they've ended up in prison So, you know, if you don't you don't look at a lot of prisoners man The most most prisoners are just normal guys. You got went down the wrong track There are your small percentage of them that are just really hectic people and they're They're a danger to the community. They're a day. They're dangerous people But a lot of you know, a lot of people in prison They might be in prison for driving or something You know what I mean? They might be in in prison for moving marijuana or something like a few pounds of marijuana just once and then they got busted Um said some armed robbers in there, but you know, there's there's there's all there's all there's murderers in there People that have killed someone they accidentally killed someone a manslaughter. There's all different scope of people in there Everyone has a story and you know You know, and I met a lot of good people and you know, there's obviously the other people that you know You don't really want to mix with too much But that was my prison story. I got released on parole home d after that So I got released for two months again on House arrest parole. So I had my bracelet on parole for another two two months And then I had to finish my top sentence, which I originally got 13 months spent six months inside I had to spend the serve the the rest of the seven months on parole Got my band band taken off left the gangs went down my little vegan track and stayed stayed sober um Stayed sober went vegan started speaking up for animals finished my parole sober So I didn't touch any drugs and alcohol my parole stopped me from taking drugs and alcohol actually it um Yeah, I really did it Because they they urine test you and they breath test you and all these things So you really don't want to you really don't want to breach your parole because otherwise You have to serve your whole parole in prison again, and I didn't want to go back through that I just got out of there like I got out of there The thing is about prison is there's a lot of drama and when you're involved with gangs like I was heavily involved with gangs There's a lot of warring that goes on and there's other gangs that you got to worry about There's other things you have to worry about You know you you got to watch what happens in there because you know the A lot of people are getting hurt by other gangs and you got to keep your eye out and you don't really want to You know, it's pretty stressful. It's stressful You don't want to go back in there and deal with that type of stress watching over your shoulder Who's going to get stabbed today? Who's going to who's going to come in this unit today? Or is it going to be another gang is something going to go down? Am I going to know them? You know, it's just just crazy crazy stuff So, yeah I was lucky that I changed my life right at the right moment Before I could have got any deeper got a really big prison sentence and you know something I regretted and Lost the rest of my life because of it But now I've got this chance to to spread a good message to help animals You know, you might think I'm a bit of an asshole But that's because I really do care about what happens to animals being abused and tortured and suffering and And I do come from a rough a rough a background So I might say things that you might wow he's rubbing me up the wrong way But trust me, I've got good intentions and if you knew my background, you'd kind of know where I was coming from a bit more Um, I don't think I don't agree with enabling animal abusers and I'm not gonna I'm gonna tell you straight And that's the type of dude. I've been my whole life. So So that's my prison stories guys. I mean there's not much to tell kept my head down kept sober You know exercised Um got strip searched squatted over a mirror like everyone else, you know, there was a few things that happened in prison You know, you see people getting knocked out. There's a few stabbings that might happen here and there You know, that's just prison. That's prison. Do you know Bunch of guys in the same in a in a facility like that things are going to go down Locking everyone up together And you know, a lot of people want to see better days, but they might be doing five years ten years And you know, they're not going to see better days soon. So they don't really have much hope in there and their families are outside And so it's pretty sad existence and people are using drugs to try to deal with it and bringing their addictions inside and You know, there's drug selling going on in there And you know, just a lot of traumatized human beings who looking for a way out But then their circumstance won't allow it. They don't have family. They don't have many friends. They're You know, so they're in a situation in there. It's really sad But some people deserve to be in jail. Some people deserve it Like, you know, you get these child rapists and all that out there that deserve to be locked up castrated and throw away the key But um, yeah, there's also a lot of good people in prison that have just gone down the wrong track. Like I just like me. Just like me So Yeah, I hope that answers your questions. What prison was like for me. There's probably some more stories that in there somewhere Like that I've forgotten but for the most part, yeah, it's horrible It's separated from your family. The only way you talk to friends is through the phone You might have friends inside prison if you're lucky, which I was You get a visit once a week, you know, and There's you just keep your head down train. Keep to yourself And just wait to get out and when you get out change your life Don't go back through the prison system. Most people do most people do I'm a I'm an anomaly I'm an anomaly compared to those who go through the prison system. I didn't get a long stint. So I wasn't truly institutionalized I still had my wits about me to to move on and do do better things and Yeah, and that that's how I live into my You know, what can I what else can I do on earth other than be, you know A gang member or be a violent person or be a standover guy or trying to You know do all these things and trying to be a hero or whatever. What else can I do? That's a little bit better a little bit more humble You know, then what's more humble than defending animals that no one cares about like pigs and chickens I don't know people just make fun of you for defending pigs and chickens and cows and fish They think it's hilarious. I don't think it's funny. I think it's good I think it's a a noble cause That not many people are willing to fight because they're not willing to take all the backlash that comes with it But I definitely am I definitely am So there we go. Thank you all for watching. I know this is a bit of a longer one But yeah, I hope you enjoyed hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit of more of a personal side to me Where I come from how far I've come and how I how I turned around my life Leave your comments down below. What else would you want to hear about about my? You know my my a bit more about my personal life a bit more about how I come here Happy to answer those questions. Maybe do another sit-down video like this coming up soon. All right guys. Peace. See you all in the next video Stay out of prison