Not me, but I spoke to a former inmate after his release who had developed severe PTSD from some of the things he witnessed while incarcerated. One of the stories was that he was playing cards with some guys and one of them was smoking a cigarette. Another inmate who was not playing with them approached the table and asked the guy smoking if he could get “shorts” on the cigarette (shorts means before you finished smoking, you gave the cigarette to someone else so they got the last few puffs before putting it out.)

The smoker agreed, the inmate wandered off and they went back to playing cards. Well, the guy playing cards must have forgot and finished the cigarette. A little while later the other inmate came back to the table asking for the short, and the guy at the table told him that he had forgotten about it and finished the cigarette. Guy wanders off again and they go back to playing cards. Shortly afterward, the inmate who wanted shorts comes back to the table, comes up behind the player, pulls his head back, and started shanking him in the eye and throat with a pen/pencil. Dude died over forgetting to give someone a damn cigarette butt. -u/GeiCobra

A convicted murderer explaining how he killed, dismembered with an angle grinder, then disposed of the body. -u/mcchronicles2

My brother said a guy across from him had a new cellmate who had gastrointestinal problems and wouldn't stop farting these rancid horrible farts after the guy told him repeatedly to stop (not like he could help it.) So the guy beat the farter to death in their cell with his bare hands. My brother said he had never seen so much blood from one person before. -u/I_Only_Eat_Tacos

I got stabbed with a Dixon pencil, but that was from Richard Busby. Mr ‘Tie my boss up and burn him alive.’ It was over a gambling debt he owed me, he’s old and weak, I ultimately took twice what he owed me, and we were back at the table playing poker together that same day.

Google his name if you’d like. I believe he just had an appeal denied or some sh*t. Either you become one of them, or you live underneath them. And once you’re one of them, they’re surprisingly and frighteningly good-natured and decent. -u/MyExesStalkMyReddit

I did a 4-month stint in Kajang (Malaysia). This Nigerian dude used to pilfer from other cells. This Malay gang found him and dipped his hand in boiling oil (basically deep fried it while it was still attached to him). That scream, it still curdles my blood. Poor guy was reduced to an unconscious pool of blood, sweat, tears, vomit, sh*t, and piss. He lost more than his hand on that day. -u/DeusExKFC

Was playing Scrabble waiting on the phone to open up. A dude was on the phone with his wife and kids and started losing his sh*t all of a sudden. He started yelling in the most guttural heartbreaking way NO NO NO NOOOO!! The guards were like "HEY CALM DOWN NOW!" While he was on the phone with them someone did a drive-by on his house and shot his wife and killed one of his children.

The guards snatched the phone from him and threw him on the ground, restrained him, and took him where there are no phones. Guy was weeping saying he just heard his baby get killed on the phone. Never saw him again either. -u/The_Revolutionary

A guy got stomped to death my first day in. The 2 guys fighting were rival gang members. The guards didn't do anything until the guy getting stomped stopped breathing. Then they came in and took them both away. One in a bag and one in cuffs. -u/fosnin

Dude in the cell next to mine tried to kill himself with a sharpened pencil. He just kept stabbing himself in the chest but couldn’t get deep enough. He was hauled off by COs kicking and screaming, begging for death. He was going to be deported. -u/Demurist

Brixton, A Wing. Coming back from the canteen, this scary-looking, wild-eyed dude steps across and tells me to hand over my burn/tobacco. I laugh and say no and walk by, waiting for him to do something. Nothing happened. Few minutes later, the same guy opened some poor lad's stomach with one slash and he was lying there trying to hold his intestines in, I saw the fear and panic on his face. The scary guy just casually walked away. No idea what happened to either of them. Alarms went off. Everyone back to their cells and locked up again. -u/Bully2533

Boiling hot peanut butter dumped on a sleeping child molester's face …. The screaming and thrashing were pretty intense…. The idea is that you can’t wipe it off or something to mitigate the damage caused, it’s going to burn deeply. And in my opinion, that was worse than watching a guy on the bench press take a 35k plate smash to the skull repeatedly…. He was dead pretty quickly… the peanut butter burn is a permanent disfigurement that will have months of pain and suffering. -u/WB-butinagoodway

I was never in prison, but in jail a bit for drug charges. I was in my 30s, but my bunky was a really nice 19-year-old kid in there for selling drugs. He seemed a bit over his head, but introduced me to the jits (I didn’t know anyone) and we’d play cards and sh*t. He had a real high bond, and one day they said to get his sh*t he got bail.

He didn’t know who, but I was so happy for him. The next morning the CO told me he was shot and killed that night (Being very respectful, everyone liked the guy). It was confirmed on the evening news. Really f*cked me up, and I can guess who got him bailed. -u/JoseZiggler

I saw someone take a hotpot fill it up with baby oil add a pound of sugar, add some magic shave, bring it to a boil then splash it in a person's face...It literally melted the guy's face off. This happened around 1999 and I still have the occasional nightmare about it. -u/XconJon1978

Just the way that some people talk about murder. Some of the people in there would be telling a story, casually drop the fact that they killed someone, then keep going on with the story like nothing happened. -u/DrinkJazzlike3487

Not a crazy story but was in for a few days and didn't realize they put you in cells based on the color of your skin. I'm a white dude with a Hispanic last name and they put me in a cell with a straight Nazi who told me if I went to actual prison (I was only in for a weekend) I would be a misfit because I wasn't one thing or the other. He openly called the black dudes next to our cell horrible things. -u/undego1423

Two guys in the kitchen made a bet that one of them wouldn’t go through the commercial dishwasher. Guy took the bet and went through...Came out the other side as one human-sized blister, 100% of his skin was blistered full of juice. He was airlifted out in a bubble-wrapped suit to hospital. I was fresh in at the time and working in the kitchen when this happened. But I wasn’t in the dish room. The blood-curdling screaming as the dishwasher cycled on still gives me goosebumps 10 years later. And I can’t un-see what a human covered in blisters looks like. I don’t know if he survived as they don’t give updates to inmates. I do know the guy who bet him was charged with fresh street charges. -u/Giveyourapplesthanks

Had a guy stick a full-size #2 pencil in his leg, the long way (inserted into his thigh, and shoved it under the skin until you couldn’t see it anymore). Took him to the hospital to have it removed. Days later, he did the same thing, in the same hole with a rubberized pencil. Rinse and repeat, hospital removes the pencil again.

Couple of days later, while on active suicide watch, he managed to jam part of a styrofoam cup, playing cards, and caulking from a cell window into his leg “pocket”...doctors pulled out another inch of wood pencil, pencil lead, and fragments of god-knows-what out of there. I don’t even think he knew what all was in there. -u/mylesx_

Not prison but courthouse holding cells. Was in for a drunken fight myself, as were pretty much all of the 8 guys I was sharing that cell with. All of us were worn out/hungover or shaking for a fix except this one guy who was acting happy because he was up first and in his words "going to be the first to get a smoke" which he was happy about.

Being locked up in those cells it's not rare for people to chat a bit since we had all been in solitary police station holding cells before, usually "what are you in for" type small talk. Well, this happy guy didn't know what he had done but knew he couldn't remember the last couple of days so assumed it was drunken behavior of some sort. He was the first to see his lawyer and came back white as a sheet, not talking and just staring at the wall until one of the guys got him to talk.

Turned out he had got blind drunk with added valium (found on him), got in a fight and lost, gone home and come back with a kitchen knife and a kettle full of sugar water, stabbed a random guy and thrown the kettle into the bar scalding multiple people. Plus the guy he stabbed was in the hospital in critical condition, and he was up on multiple counts of assault with intent to injure, serious bodily harm, possession of a deadly weapon, possession of a controlled substance and attempted murder. -u/MileysMooseKnuckle

Massive open wound flesh gashes down to the bone made by herself on her forearms and top of the legs that she used to “hide” things in, like paintbrushes, coffee rations, pens, etc. I could literally see her bones. -u/V11000

(Be me, skinny white kid) Got back from my job in the canteen filling orders to everyone in my unit making "o" shapes with their hands. Didn't understand. Got to my cell, C.O unlocked it, and there's a MASSIVE black man loudly sleeping on the top bunk. Says "Oh yeah. You got a new roommate" and slams the door shut.

He was actually chill and oddly enough, he never asked for bottom bunk status so I actually got a lot of credit in the unit for that but for those first few days. It turns out those 'O' shapes were people telling me how big my a**hole was going to be when he was done with me. First two months in. -u/FollowTheLeaders

Not terrifying, exactly, but once a water main near the prison broke in the late afternoon, and the white shirt on duty (the senior administrative correctional officer) just kind of decided to believe that the problem would get fixed quickly enough that no emergency steps were needed. This was summertime in Florida, btw. Within maybe 5 hours, the toilets were overflowing with feces, and people were literally sh*tting on newspapers on the ground like dogs. It was hot, flies were everywhere, and the only water we received before 10am the following morning was a single 4-oz half-cup.

After the incident ended, a handful of inmates initiated the grievance process, which was the first step to build up to a lawsuit. Those inmates were individually brought before the head administrative white shirt (a "colonel" in DOC parlance), and told in no uncertain terms that if they proceeded with the legal process, they would be beaten to death, and the paperwork would reflect that they had died while attempting to kill a correctional officer. -u/ForQ2

Saw a dude get his head caved in, in his cell. A new inmate had come in and refused to show his papers. Another inmate came and said he was in court with him and he was a pedophile. Later that day, the “keys”, as we called them, told him he needed to roll his shit up, and basically ask for protective custody.

He refused. Later that night after we were all in our cells, his celly took a pencil and stabbed him in the eye. Then pulled him off his bunk and smashed his head against the wall till there was nothing left. Once he was done, he called the CO over the intercom and let them handle everything. I could see this through our window as they were in the cell across from us. -u/SkW3rLy

Ok so, unfortunately, my bunk was close to the corner where everybody came to fight or whatever. So this one guy claimed that he was a gang member but it was discovered that he was a false flagger. So, the gang members put him in the corner and took turns beating and raping him. He was in the infirmary for about a week. When he came back, the gang got him all over again. He was transferred after that. I promise there aren't many things more terrifying than hearing a grown man scream while he's being raped. -u/NoObjective427

A white kid got absolutely destroyed for accidentally sitting on the front bench of the TV area on his 2nd day. They waited for Rec, then started walking with him, every lap they made more guys would tag along. Then once in the blind spot they jumped him. 6-7 guys beating a 120lb skinny little white kid. They were climbing up the fence and jumping down on his head. He was out within the first few seconds, but they kept on beating him until the COs gassed everyone. They snapped his lower back and he is now in a wheelchair. All for not knowing any better. -u/schwiftypickel

Inmates being denied medical treatment until they are dead. I saw it twice. Both were diabetics, both elderly, neither had family support, and both had conditions exacerbated by the inhumane housing situation. In the South Texas heat they lock up 56 men per dorm in poorly ventilated metal buildings. On lockdown, they require you to stay in your bunk on a plastic mattress for weeks - only allowed a 5-minute shower every third day. I was 40 and in decent shape and I thought I might die there. In the afternoons the wall next to me was so hot I couldn’t leave my hand on it. Shame on TDCJ and all of the employees. They put people in a terrible situation and we allow it to continue. If they treated dogs like that there would be pitchforks. End of rant. -u/d1duck2020