Staying strong key to surviving in jail
“In my 24 years, I’ve been to state jail twice. The first time, I was 16 or 17. My mother had three other kids to worry about. I started hanging around with the wrong people. Started making some decisions I shouldn’t have made. I ended up doing 16 months.
“I’d been to Harris County and the Baytown precinct, but not state. People were telling me, they’ve got nothing but time on their hands down there. All they do is fight.
“Obviously, you get a little nervous. But I couldn’t let it show. I had to act a little tougher, that there was no fear in me. If you don’t, people will take advantage. Like, we can apply a little pressure, and he’s going to break.
“That’s not something you want to happen. Especially in a place where you’re supposed to be protected, but you’re really not. There’s nobody in there to actually hear you. Anybody you tell, they’re all employees. You think they’re going to look out for you? The other person might be in the wrong, and they may tell him to stop, but that’s as far as it goes. He’s going to continue doing what he wants. So you just have to be in survival mode. You have to focus on making it through until you get out.
“I have a couple friends in there right now. They weren’t the friends who lived over here. They were from the good area, in the good houses. They saw how me and my friends lived, and they thought that was the thing to be in. And it cost them a good part of their lives.
“One of my friends is sitting in there for 24 years. The first car he got was a Mercedes-Benz that his mama gave him. All the good things. But he saw the type of lifestyle we were living, and he thought it was cool.
“It hurts me because he calls and says, ‘Hey, bro, I want to come home.’ All I can tell him is, ‘You’ve got to be strong. You can’t show emotion while you’re in there.’ I’ve got to keep him in that mentality where you show no weakness. Because if you do, they’ll take advantage of you.
“It’s definitely hard. Nobody’s really trained to be in an environment like that. But to survive in there, you’ve got to stay strong.”
— Sergio Yepez
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