213 Comments for Salem Jail

the flats

I took my GED in that room

I'm writing a book about the Essex County Sheriffs Dept. I retired from there in 2006. I see a couple of pics that I'd be interested in using in the book. Any interest on your part?

Loosescrews84@hotmail.com is the best email to use to let me know.
Thanx
Bill

There's a former inmate's improvised clothesline strung up between the bed posts. And the word help is inscribed on the wall. Probably help never came.

Spent months there in 1986. Horrible living conditions, some guards were worse than the inmates. Some of the inmates were worse than any guard could possibly be.

clothes line for wash in toilets against rules but sometime tolerated and privacy curtains

they used them as clothes line which were against policy however sometimes tolerated curtains too

Pretty sure that the comment above the door is supposed to read "Welcome to the Terrordome" - a Public Enemy track - it says Public Enemy #1 next to it which I think is a line from the tune.

You couldn't simply resist the smell of flowers... :)

Whos Austin?

Aw....what was wrong with him/her? :(

Dang,i feel bad for the prisoners :(

Read the Wayward Sheriff's of Witch County by former Sheriff Robert Ellis Cahill, and you will see among other things, that the CO's had a big pizza party in the jail the night it closed, raised hell, broke a lot of windows, smashed TVs, other stuff inmates left behind, it was well known at the time, and some would have liked the penalties for that to be a lot more severe, but one has to understand the conditions there, day in/day out, year after year... for the guards, as well as the inmates...it was the job from hell on pretty much every level, so they were sort of both "doin time"...God Bless em'

19th century was the "institutional green", which authorities believed made for a more "calming" atmosphere, then in the 20th century, the shrinks voted more for the blue tones, later came the pastels to give more light/make things less dingy, then the 2 tones, with a prominence of cream, or white, and the inmates did all the painting...in another of the photo's, you can see the under "layers" of those colors...somebody went overboard on that VERY "sunny" yellow though, or maybe they just had a couple of gallons kicking around, cost was always a factor too.

Salem Jail was VERY small, and always lacked accommodations, this was likely a holding "room" for new inmates being processed in, especially young/first timers, not a cell that anyone was living in, even in overcrowded times, hence the color, the open window to the tier etc., sort of an initiation period so to speak before being assigned a cell. Those are adjustable frames that stack bunks, there are 3 "beds" in the room, and you can see how it was assembled on the leg rail of the full bunk. The graffiti likely refers to Austin, TX, probably a troubled, and very homesick guy who was wishing he never came to Salem, but would now be there for "awhile".