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Although it is typical for most guards to let inmates vote on a particular program
and channel, some guards insist on their ultimate power. This is a particularly conten-
tious issue when racial favoritism is involved, as the following comment by Will, a 40-
year-old Black, indicates:
And then you have the majority Mexicans in there; they put on Spanish
music and Spanish stations and turn it up loud and blast it; and totally dis-
respect; and the Spanish officers…because the majority of the officers is
Spanish…this is a family thing, this is a Mexican thing.
This is somewhat related to another strategy to gain control over TV, one that is used by
both Hispanics and Blacks; the “unfair practice” of lobbying. Inmates told me that in the
dorms some people will go around and ask other inmates to get off their bunks and come
to the dayroom to vote for a particular show.
While contestation is greatest in the medium and high-security cell-units, tensions
are also high in the low-security dorms at the county jail due to the limited space and the
fact that only one television is available. Like in other units, inmates here most often take
a vote on what they want to watch, but tensions do arise over different program prefer-
ences. Jay, a 46-year-old White, explains:
Yeah, it’s a cross section of society, definitely. The Blacks wanna watch
their show, the Hispanics wanna watch their show, you know…. That’s
the reason they try to just keep it on the movie channel, ‘cause you watch
that, and then that’s it, and nobody argues.
It is true that the movie channel seems to be the main channel in the county jail dorms, at
least in the evening. During the day, the TV is typically tuned to soap operas and talk
shows. The choice of soap operas seems to create more tension among the women than
the men. Many of the women have their favorites, which do not necessarily match the
others’ favorites. Tension increases even more when female guards also have an interest
Convention