3:24 PM - Lock In A Sock Warning: Graphic Content
Category: Life

In early ’79 I started my first ever prison bit in the ADC (Arkansas Department of Correction) at Tucker prison farm near England, Arkansas. Although it wasn’t made clear, I believe the infamous prison in the movie Brubaker, starring Robert Redford, was Tucker, the main prison in the system at the time. In ’79 Tucker, also known as gladiator school, housed mostly cruel, ruthless young men under the age of 21 spending the majority of their days hoeing cotton in the fields and nights fighting for their lives in the open barracks. My very first day in four barracks I walked in to witness a fight between a young skinhead and a North Little Rock gang banger. Standing aside, wide eyed and alert to my new surroundings, I saw the banger expertly whirling something in a circle as if he were David himself about to launch a stone from a sling. What I really saw was a “lock in a sock” and an assault on a white kid and human life that was about to be changed forever.

When you were a kid did you ever have your mom and dad buy you one of those inexpensive Master brand combination locks? You know, the kind you might secure your books, school supplies, and personal stuff in a hallway locker? Well in prison, that very same lock is used as a lethal weapon when placed inside a tube sock, then tied snugly at the toe.

The skin’ got his cranium cracked good that day. Blood gushed from his head as the gang of hoodlums swarmed around him in a circle, kicking him in the head while he was down, performing the final coup de grace, leaving California whitey in coma with brain damage for the rest of his life. When all was said and done I remember as the boy was being slowly carted away on a prison stretcher, he had a perfectly round 1 ¾” hole in the side of his head, resembling the coin slot on an old pay phone. When I asked why he was assaulted, I was told he resisted being turned out (or forcibly raped) by the blacks.

Countless individuals in both state and federal institutions across the U.S. have lost teeth, an eye, had their skulls busted resulting in permanent damage due to the weapon of choice in prison- a “lock in a sock”. Over the years I’ve witnessed many assaults hearing that all too familiar whir of the “lock in a sock”, gaining momentum before reaching its final intended destination. Master certainly makes a durable product as many men can attest. Just wanted to let you know that a “lock in a sock” ain’t no joke when it comes to violence in prison.