A Brief Explanation: Lockdown.

You may think that we sequestered many, the justice-impacted of Florida, USA, are already locked down when we take up our residency behind the miles of coiled concertina wire that segregate us from the world at large.

Would it shock you to learn that we can be locked down even further, and all it takes is the whim of an idea?

In class, our instructor did not know what our lockdowns entail, thinking we were simply sequestered to the dorm wing where we are assigned. We were quick to disabuse her of that notion, going into detail of how lockdowns work up in two-man land.

Two-Man Land

For those of us living in dorms where we have two person cells, a lockdown means we enter our cell, close the door all the way, and that's it.
We are confined to 70-something square feet of two bunks and a toilet, and we stay there for typically 72+ hours.
We eat in our cells, sleep in our cells, and figure out the logistics of using the toilet in our cell when another person is right there.
Medications are usually brought to the wing, but sometimes, you are escorted to Medical instead, traveling in your dorm group with one of your dorm's officers to prevent admixture with another dorm.
There is no sneaky-breeki doing a lap around your dorm wing to at least stretch your legs, and you live with the requirement to trust that someone will eventually open the door for you and let you out of the crapper.
Your dorm's shower bay door is locked at this time.

Depending on location in the dorm, you may be able to see the television from your window, and tune in to its audio with a radio if your facility is actually using a radio tuner to rebroadcast the sound.

This is generally a time to make up your missed rest, get ready for the shakedown that usually comes, and catch up on lost reading time.

Shakedown?

Yep. The often thorough ransacking and plundering of your personal effects by corrections officers, in search of contraband. A peanut butter sandwich can even be contraband in some cases.

Open Bay

Compare and contrast, lockdown in Open Bay dorms are less restrictive by the design of the dorm itself. Open Bay dorms have an open floor plan, no cells, just a large number of beds (72-75, seems to be the average) in a wing with a partitioned toilet and shower area for the individuals housed there to share.

During a lockdown, the requirement is to stay on your bunk for the requisite period. You may leave your bunk to make use of the toilets, but not the showers; do not linger overly long at this unless you want someone to come in and bellow like a stuck pig about people off their bunks.

Here, it's easier to sneak some off-bunk time in the form of walking the long way to the toilet and back.

Depending on the facility, your access to television may not even be hindered, since everyone effectively sleeps in the day room.

What triggers a lockdown?

Many things.
If someone attempts to escape, the compound goes on lock.
If a riot happens, lockdowns happen.
If little Billy Freeworlder gets a UAV quadcopter for Crimmus and flies it too close to prison because he wants to see what a prison looks like without going to one, he won't see anything of note -- we're locked down for three days.
When a severe weather event like a hurricane or tornado threatens, we'll often lock down until the threat has passed and the compound's miles of concertina wire are confirmed still present.

There are more things, but censorship being what it is, I can't get into details, lest I be mistaken for someone planning and plotting, instead of someone patiently explaining a fact and factor of prison life. 😅

Ultimately...

In the end, prison is already an unpleasant place, a dire reality for some of us. It can be made more unpleasant at the locking of a door.

What can be done to help?

Since you're here, asking that question...
Here in Florida, people need to speak to their house representative and their senator in their district, implore them to support the bills that create a Correctional Ombudsman Office,and/or Florida's Long Term Sentencing Act.

We as Justice-impacted individuals do not have an ombudsman in Florida, a person whose job is to investigate complaints by private persons against the government. What this means is our complaints yield loads of malfeasance. We are asked to do the right thing while legally sanctioned wrongdoing is done, under threat of more punishment.

The Long Term Sentencing Act aims to bring parole back to the state. For those who are serving a long sentence on a nonviolent, nonsexual crime, this bill would allow them to be eligible for parole after a decade. All others would become eligible after 20 years.

I see this as a possible win for the men who have served 20, 30, 40, even 50 years of a LWOP sentence: these are people who have been gone from a world that has truly left them behind. Let's let these old men live the rest of their lives with their families who care for them, not with some wet behind the ears kid who's preying on 75 year olds for a pack of noodles to buy drugs.

If you aren't a Floridian, but you know someone who is, get them on board with supporting and elevating these to their representatives, quickly.

Everyone can make sure they stay involved in their communities, city, regions, to ensure that we move toward peace and helping each other.

Let's make this year good in spite of the chaos, shall we?