For most people, their toilet serves just one purpose. However, inmates have a seemingly endless list of creative uses for the comby—a stainless steel combination toilet and sink—found within their cells.
Some are relatively innocent, such as serving as a quick wash for laundry. Others are a bit more problematic. For example, inmates might use their toilets to pass contraband to others.
But before we get into all that, unless you’ve spent some time inside, you probably need some basic prison toilet information.
Where Are Toilets Located in Prisons?
The answer? It depends. You will typically find wet cells—the industry term for a cell with a toilet and sink—in medium- and maximum-security prisons or high-security areas within a jail. In many minimum-security prisons with dormitory-style housing, communal bathrooms are the norm. The American Bar Association says unrestricted access for prisoners to adequate, clean, reasonably private, and functioning toilets and wash basins falls under the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, so putting toilets in individual cells may be expensive, but it sure is convenient.
But prison toilets can be the bane of existence for guards and maintenance crews no matter where they are located. One jailer told us that stopping up toilets is a weekly occurrence in most facilities. Once pipes are clogged and flooding begins, guards must move inmates away from unsanitary conditions while repairs are made. It turns out this is the perfect time to divert guards and create a little havoc, gaining some control over the day. The cost of water waste, manpower, and aggravation is inestimable.
Prisoners in wet cells will also clog their toilet to get some extra time out of their cell while the problem is being fixed, register protest, or just to annoy their “celly,” or cellmate.
Some innovative prison designers have discovered a solution to this problem—vacuum plumbing. The typical debris prisoners use to clog a gravity drained toilet won’t foul a vacuum drainage system. Instead, those items—sheets, socks, and whatever—pass right through the vacuum piping network and into the vac center collection tanks.
How does it work? The extraction valve opens when the vacuum toilet’s flush mechanism is activated, allowing atmospheric pressure to push waste into the vacuum piping and toward the vacuum center. A water valve is simultaneously activated, allowing the toilet to be rinsed and refilled.
It’s a system that virtually eliminates clogged piping. Should a blockage occur, maintenance crews know precisely which cell the backup is coming from and can get to it quickly.
Water Waste & Control
Can you guess how many times a day an inmate typically flushes their cell toilet?
According to Correctional News, water-usage meters installed in inmate housing units at California’s San Quentin state prison show that inmates are flushing their toilets 35 to 65 times per day. By comparison, a typical single-family household may flush a single toilet 10 to 12 times per day.
The next obvious question is, why so often in prison?
That number is so high in part because of the many uses of prison toilets which we will dive into in just a bit. But also, flushing their toilet is about the only thing an inmate has control over. They are told when to eat, shower, sleep, and go outside. They don’t even control the light in their cells. But the toilet flush is one environmental thing they have agency over, so they simply exercise that control as they wish. No big deal, right?
Wrong. Multiply the average number of flushes by the typical 3.5 gallon-per-flush capacity of the older toilets found in most existing facilities. The water consumption numbers are shocking. Even a small- to medium-sized correctional facility with several hundred cells can use the same amount of water as a small city (per Correctional News).
Well, there is a fix for that as well. Many prisons have Electronic Water Management systems. For example, Acorn Engineering’s Master-Trol® allows staff remote control of all aspects of water usage, including the ability to set the number of times a toilet can be flushed and the length of time between flushes. Staff can also remotely enable or disable a single flush valve or lockout the entire prison or just one block with a few clicks of the mouse. This solution provides tremendous water savings. In some cases, prisons have seen up to a 68 percent reduction in water usage!
But it’s not just about water savings; it’s about security too. By controlling everything remotely, it reduces close interaction between inmates and staff. It also reduces the ability for inmates to hide contraband by shutting down the water just before a shakedown.
Now, suppose the prison has a vacuum system in addition to its electronic water management system. In that case, it can see even more considerable savings. This is because vacuum toilets operate on just 1/2 gallon of water (PDF) instead of the 1.6 gallons in a standard toilet.
Why Are Prison Toilets Made from Stainless Steel?
As a manufacturer of prison toilets, we can tell you that a lot goes into the design and engineering of penal ware. First, stainless steel is far more durable and vandal resistant than your standard porcelain toilet. Porcelain is easy to crack or shatter creating dangerous and even deadly shards while a stainless steel comby, urinal, or toilet is virtually indestructible.
We even engineer and manufacture our prison toilets so there are no little holes or gaps anywhere so prisoners cannot hide contraband. Things like flush mechanisms and traps are completely enclosed in the stainless steel unit to prevent tampering.
But enough about the toilet itself… let’s talk about the creative ways prisoners use them.
Creative Uses for Prison Toilets
- Toilet Talking: Toilet talking is quite common in tower units. Several cells on different floors will share the same waste pipe, which they use as an amplifier. For example, a first-tier inmate can talk to an inmate several floors up if they both empty all the water out of their toilets. In Allegheny County Jail, those conversations were once of a romantic nature. A female prisoner used the toilet to talk to her boyfriend housed a few floors above her.
- Toilet Fishing: Toilet fishing is a lot like toilet talk, such that inmates use the main waste pipe to communicate, but in this case, it’s the passing of kites (notes), contraband, and even food (wrapped in plastic!) and it only works one way. The person at the top of the waste pipe ties off the note or contraband to a line (often made from ripped up clothing or sheets) and flushes it down to a prisoner below. The prisoner on the receiving end stuffs something into their toilet (frequently bedding or clothing) to “catch” the item.
- Making Pruno (Prison Toilet Wine): Making wine is a straightforward process. You take some fruit, add some yeast, a bit of extra sugar and let it sit for a few days. For prison vintners, fruit could be apples, oranges, apricots, or prunes (thus the name Pruno). The yeast comes from a chunk of bread and the added sugar from a roll of, say, Jolly Ranchers. All this goes in a plastic bag or bottle to ferment for 5–7 days, or until a guard discovers it—whichever comes first. So why is it called toilet wine? Back in the day, prisoners often hid their hooch in their toilet tanks. Yet another reason today’s prisons tend not to have standard porcelain toilets like you have at home.
- Washing Clothes: While most prisons do have a laundry service, there are times inmates don’t want to wait for freshly laundered clothing. The toilet bowl holds a lot of water and is a convenient place to clean a pair of socks or t-shirt quickly, and the flush supplies a good (enough) rinse cycle.
- Cooking Food: In the event prisoners do not have access to a microwave, the toilet offers a (not so) convenient cooker. Inmates can drain warm water from the sink into the toilet, place the food in a plastic bag, and let it sit in the toilet bowl to heat up.
- Cooling Drinks: Room temperature milk is not great, nor does it keep very long. Prisoners will often put the carton into their toilet bowl to keep their drinks cool.
- Working Out: There are some excellent workouts available for those looking to stay in shape while locked in a cell. Prisoners perform triceps dips by putting their hands on their chair or bed then lowering their body toward the ground. They might put one or two feet on the toilet for added difficulty.
Wrapping Up
While we’ve had some fun with this topic, there is nothing to laugh about when it comes to prisoner and staff safety and dignity.
We invite you to read more about criminal justice systems that foster rehabilitation and reflection. These facilities are not just more humane for inmates; they have a positive impact on the staff who work there every day.