First thing you think about when you walk into there is, “What’s going to happen while I’m here?”

Then they will put you in a dorm. It goes by age. These are the dorms: Claverese, Del Norte, Gleen, Fresno, Humboldt, El Dorado, Butte, and Amador. Then when you go into a dorm, you see open bunks. Then the staff in there that’s working in the dorm, will tell a Crip or a Bay or a Blood rep’ to talk to you and ask you where you are from; and you can say where you’re from or not say where you’re from.

Things not to say out loud in CYA are: Do not say CK to a Crip or BK to a Blood (because it means Crip Killer or Blood Killer, you feel?). If you say it, there’s a rule in there that you will be on a green light until the rape takes you off. That goes for anybody that’s a ward in there.

Then when you’re new, you will have to stay in the dorm for four days until they put you in school. Then when you do start school, you will have to go to school everyday — if not, they will put you in a lock-up room that’s in the dorm until night time. Then the next day, you will start over.

If you are a Crip, Blood, Bay, Nortéño, Bulldog, Suréño, and you are riding wit’ one of them — you can’t disrespect another set if you just wanna go home. People, respect that! But if you was one and you dropped from bein’ with that set, you just a “bitch” or a “case” that’s under somebody’s gun (that means that you pay them your canteen).

They do have a slip that’s called a canteen slip, and you can buy whatever kind of food. Yes, they do have noodles, sodas, candy, chips, whatever.

Then it’s a thing called a phase. When you first come in, you start on phase two. They change phases every week. You can’t get more than a certain amount “checks” to make that phase. They have phase one, two, three and four. Two and up is a good phase, and it means that you have been doing good and not receiving a lot of checks against you.

Then if you are a phase one, the staff will take all of your things that’s in your locker. And if you get visits, you will only have a one-hour visit. Any other phase, you will have five hours and thirty minutes for a complete visit.

When you first come into the dorm, usually by the next day you will have a caseworker. He or she will have “group” every week with all of his or her wards talking about things in the dorm that you been doing good or bad. Then after group, he or she will let just their caseloads get on the phone. Also you give your caseworker a request for a visit, and ten people can be on one visiting list — but only five can come in at a time. And your visitors can bring a camera, too.

If you are a high school graduate, the staff will find you a job in there to work for money, but you only get a job if you are doing good. You could work in the gym, outside, in the office, or you could work in the school area.

If it’s a fight, one-on-one, you will get sprayed and took to Inyo. Inyo is a lock-up hall. But if it’s a “kick off” in the hall, you will get fog (brown mace). If you are in a good (honor) room from doing good, they will take you out of there and put you in the dorm, while they put the fighters in their rooms and in the lock-up rooms.

Each dorm will have what you call KP’s that work in the kitchen and get paid ten dollars every week. It will go on your canteen books.

You could get a job I the dorm not getting paid but bein’ a manager for a bathroom, for a laundry room, for the outside yard, for the dayroom, for the dorm or for the YC (youth counselor) station. And you can have an assistant manager’s job. The manager will be the one going into the good room, not the assistant.

When you first come in, people will give you soaps, DO (deodorant), toothpaste. If you don’t have canteen money on your books, people be acting funny wit’ their shhh: You just going to be messed over. Yes, you could have Walkmans bomping that Kiek; naw, that KMEL 106.1!

When I first went in there, I was fightin’ hella much. I went in wit’ nine months, but when I came out, I had done two years! Then ninjas ain’t nothin’ by their self, but they just want you to get time wit’ them. So I stopped messing up and started making my phase and started to do good, on phase four for about seven months — so they let me parole home.

Thei’ food is hella nasty.
You get juice by doing good: The staff will bring you shhh and let you stay out longer looking at TV, eating noodles and the stuff that the staff brings you.

We stay doing something all day, and we ain’t even locked up in no rooms. So that’s a good thing. And people don’t do nothin’ while you sleep; ninjas there don’t play like that. The showers: the good wards that got respect can run the showers ten minutes. Hot or cold, you do that.

People just choose to fight.

That shhh hella easy, believe me. You will go home like this: You get time cut if you’re doing good. Your caseworker will write a good report to the board and if the parole agent say’ something good, you know you’ going home.

They got a PS2 wit’ hella games, but they call that jail! Shhh, that ain’t jail; that shhh a group home except you can’t go nowhere. Everybody could play it but phase ones (they don’t get shhh). Then at the end of the day, the workers could take it to the rooms. A lot of people don’t even like playing it. They just write and talk to their selves somewhere in a corner, doing nothing. But the next day, you gonna have to bring it out so everybody can play it; then they will let you take it back up there.

Fresno Hall is a drug program, for people that’s doing drug program. It’s a six-month program. After completing it, you can go home.

Yes, people do try to mess up your time ‘cause they know you’ going home. Don’t fall for nothing; stay to yourself those last two or three weeks. Then when that day come’, you out and they still gonna be in there!

It’s nothing to be scared about. If you know people up there and they doing stuff bad, you better get away — ‘cause if they get time, you going to get the same! Be a leader not a follower.

If it’s a lot of people fightin’ and it don’t got nothing to do wit’ you, when staff say, “Get on the ground!” You get on the ground, ‘cause ain’t nobody gonna come up to you and try to hit you on the ground when you don’t have nothing to do wit’ the fight. Only people that’s gonna be fightin’ is people that’s riding wit’ someone else, like North or South (plus Bay, Blood, Crip) against North or South; or it’s gonna be just North against South (and Bay, Blood, Crip ain’t gonna have nothing to do wit’ it).

It’s like Bay, Blood and Crip, is wit’ each other in there. We name ourselves, “Three Eyes.” It don’t mean you got to like each other, but that’ how it be.

Most of us was going home or going to DeWitt (and that’s a good thing because DeWitt is what you call “you will go home in four months”). DeWitt is outside of OH Close.
Staff be going to each dorm with JC Penny towels. They are ten dollars. They do that because people don’t like using state towels.

About the visit list: You get it from your caseworker. After you put the people on there, you give it to the parole agent that works in your dorm.

Let me put y’all up on game. They say no girlfriends, but look, this how to do it: Talk to your mom and tell her that you want this girl to come or how many you want. Then your parole agent is gonna ask you who is these people, and you gonna say, “My sister.” And the agent is gonna ask your mom, so make sure you give your mom their last and first name. And tell your mom, “When the parole agent call’, tell her them are your blood sister’.” They gotta have some kind of ID to show to get in the parole agent will say, and when your mom say that they got that, the agent will say, “All right, then you’ all to the good.” Then when visiting come, you’ mom, you’ girl, and whoever!

Sometimes when staff comes in, they like doing “mando’s” outside. Sometimes they will do a “slip” (mandatory) program: it could be going swimming, going to the gym, working out, playing basketball or staying in the dorm or playing something. We be out all day! You will get tired of it, believe it.

When you on swimming, gym, outside movement, you could not talk to the other dorm, but sometimes when the cool staff come, you can. When the cool staff come, the wards that be playing basketball could tell one of the staff to get five or six, or four or three or two wards, or even just one, to play hoop wit’ y’all while the others doing something else. And yes, when you on a outside program, you can play handball on the wall; they got a real wall.

We would go to school first, then do all those activities then shift change: three to eleven; then start right back again.

They be having rap, dancin’, racin’, basketball, football, dominoes, cards, PS2, handball, best beds, all that competition, in tournaments, all for prizes. But that shhh still is jail. We do hella shhh everyday; never stop ‘cause they don’t want people to fight and be in kick-off’s.

Sometimes fights, kick-off’s, don’t be happenin’ to about a year. Every year it be some fights but not a lot. But when somebody ear get bus’, shhh just go bad for about three to four weeks. Then, don’t nothin’ happen for about a year.

When it’s a kick off, everyone eats on the beds until everything is right for five days. Don’t nobody want to do that!

But just think of it like this: You wouldn’t want yo’ mama coming out there hella much. You will want to get out and help her by doing good in there. Them ninjas would give you noodles or whatever to fight and stay in there wit’ them: Ninjas don’t care about you! If they cared, they wouldn’t want you to get “time add’s” to be wit’ them and not wit’ your family! They don’t even care about yo’ family. What they care about is thei’self. Why you getting time added, he about to get out. He don’t give a what about you!

In each dorm, they have a washroom, wit’ six lock-up rooms and six good rooms. When you come into a hall, the staff will get you a locker to put like your canteen things in there. and whatever you own goes into your locker; that’s your only locker.

If someone fightin’ in the dorm and it’s about to be rec’, the people that was fightin’ is going to go to lock up and y’all will still get rec’. If it’s six fights in the school, they will put everybody on the ground and line up each dorm, one at a time. One dorm will go, then the next dorm, but when everybody is in the dorms, y’all just stay on the beds until the seven-to-three staff go home; then proceed with rec’.

Before they do rec’, they do a count. Then when count clears, they have one of the wards going around wit’ a list to go outside, go to the pool, to the gym, or stay in the dorm. Whoever stays in the dorm, they tell them to go to the dayroom. The others stay on the bed until they line us up; then we go where we’ going.

When a scan goes off, the staff will tell us to get on the beds and lay on our backs until everything is done; then proceed.

If you talking trash to the staff, they will lock you up until you are cool. If you are not doing what you are suppose’ to be doing, you will get a check; and if you are still doing that same stuff, you will get a check and they will put you in lock up for eight hours.

No, you cannot have a tape player, only a FM and AM radio. Yes, they do have PPV cable.

For whoever is going to CYA, try to get on the staff’ good side.

If somebody wanna fight and do’ not wanna get a time-add, they will fight in what’s called “a blind” where staff can’t see you. But you can’t just call nobody a “bitch” and think you’ not gonna get time, ‘cause whoever called got called a “bitch” is going to fight you in the open where staff can see you! If you wanna go home but you talking shhh to somebody, you ain’t going to go home like that. You could go home if you’ not messing wit’ nobody and you’ doing good.

You will make it home if you don’t mess wit’ nobody and you’ doing good, you cool. But don’t say none of these, or you will not be going home: to Crips: “ef it” / CK / crabs / crip killer; you could say it to yourself, but don’t ever spell the “ef” word in there or anything that has CK in it. To Bloods: “ef it” / BK / slob / blood killer; you could say it to yourself but don’t ever spell anything in there with a BK in it (that goes for both Blood and Bay). To Bays: “ef it” / BK / Bay Killer. To Nortéños: “ef it” / chap / NK / buster; you could say it to yourself but don’t ever spell out anything with NK in it. To Suréños: “ef it” / Sur / SK / scrap; you could say it to yourself but don’t ever spell out anything with SK in it. To Bulldogs: “ef it” / frog; and don’t say “ef Fresno”.

It’s hard to be in CYA just because of thinking about your family while you’re locked up.

You wear blue jeans, a coke-white shirt, and some Alphas. You do not have to wear the shoes, and if you got money you could buy some shoes off canteen. They have Classic Reeboks, Converse, and some other white shoes. You don’t wanna see them ‘cause you don’t need to be going to CYA anyway!

And it ain’t about you had beef wit’ him on the outs and you don’t like him. It’s like this: You gotta do that outside beef outside, where it came from.

They got some messed-up staff. They got some cool staff. And they got staff that just don’t care and just wanna lock you up. So, if I was you and you’ going to that CYA — get on the staff’ good side!

Since I been in there, only one person had got stabbed, and the one that did it, went and stayed in the hole for six months.

When the dorms are outside, yes, people do run to the other dorm and start fightin’. It happens. It’s been twenty-four to thirty-six people out there fightin’, getting right back up and still fightin’ ‘cause people be hitting other people on the ground that’s riding. And you don’t suppose to hit nobody on the ground, and that’s why people hop up, ‘cause one of thei’ homies getting on the ground, getting jumped.

The staff sprays everybody wit’ “fog” wit’ little bombs that got spray in there. Then they put everybody in lock up. Then the whole CYA be on lock down for about three weeks, eating on our beds and not going to school, and that ain’t cool — you just be thinking, “Damn, I need to get out and do good!” That’s what happens.

Say if you got two years and you did good for eight months, when you go up for parole, they are going to ask you, “Well, Lil’ Ant, how do you feel about your victims? What you going to do when you get out, is going to go to school. You going to listen to your momma. Do you have sisters and brothers? How you going to treat them? Is you going to see your parole officer every week? Is you going to do the same thing?” They’ going to ask you things like that.

Don’t go in there acting like you don’t know nothing. They’ going to ask you, “Is you ready?” Act like a smart guy.

Well, that’s what’s going on in CYA.