From the legal blog In this Case, one man recounts his weekend stay at the D.C. Jail. He got tossed in there after getting picked up on a DWI charge (his second apparently). He recounts roaches, a lot of “motherfucker” this and that, and just general mass confusion. Here’s a taste of the jail’s intake process:

“They do a psychological test to check that you’re mentally stable. An AIDS test, a TB test. There’s a big desk, and there’s one CO waving guys in, and they’re constantly doing head counts to make sure they don’t lose anyone. The guards were pretty overwhelmed and confused. And understaffed. If something went down, someone could easily get hurt before anyone really responds. And then I could hear on all the radios, Code Blue, and about an hour or two later they were wheeling in this guy on a stretcher with blood all over him. He was strapped down, knocked out, blood all over him. I’m like, man, this is lawless. One CO got accidentally locked in the holding cell with us. There was dead silence in the room; he was pretty scared. I couldn’t believe something like that could happen. What if he was killed that night, right there? There were guys in that holding cell for attempted murder and this corrections officer was all alone. Complete lawlessness.”

The narrative boasts more gritty details. You can read it all here.