A former prisoner who spent a decade in prison recalled the most dehumanizing moment of her time in prison – revealing that the worst happened before she was even officially behind bars.
Jen Gomez, who was sentenced to 10 years in a Florida state prison for robbery, grand larceny and trafficking stolen property across state lines in 2011, shared her idea in a video posted on YouTube.
One of the experiences that still haunts her is daily strip searches, which she says never get easier.
“Strip searches are part of everyday prison life; you’d better get used to them,” he said matter-of-factly.
Jen Gomez, who was sentenced to 10 years in a Florida state prison for robbery, grand larceny and trafficking stolen property across state lines in 2011.
One of the experiences that even haunts her is the daily strip searches, which, she admitted, you never get used to. Pictured: Jen’s mugshot.
“You can’t be shy and you can’t act strange because if you do they’ll think you’re trying to hide something and they’ll screw you even more,” he added.
Jen’s advice was to simply “find a way to mentally check it or just fight through it.”
“They’re not going anywhere; it’s always going to be shit for the record,” he warned.
Jen then recalled the details of her first strip search in prison and said that they don’t give you time to “acclimate” or get used to the idea, and that it’s very invasive.
‘They throw you well “Get off the bus and start looking right away,” he said.
Jen also delved into the “dehumanizing” welcome experience of being showered with the other inmates, starting with freeing them all and getting them off the bus.
“They start taking us in small groups where we go to the shower area and they hose us down like dogs because they want to make sure we don’t have lice,” he explained.
When they were clean, groups of three to six inmates were called to a small area where two to four female police officers waited.
The search begins as officers assess each prisoner one by one, starting with their mouths as workers slide a gloved finger over their teeth, gums and under their tongues.
Jen (pictured) was released from prison in 2020, after spending almost 10 years behind bars.
‘T“They will be standing in front of you and proceed to tell you to take off every item of clothing you are wearing and drop it in front of you,” he explained.
“They don’t give any instructions, they just tell you to take everything off and of course you feel very uncomfortable because you proceed to take everything off and let it fall into a pile.”
He later admitted that the vulgarity of the entire experience was unbearable.
The search begins as officers assess each prisoner one at a time, starting with their mouths as workers slide a gloved finger over their teeth, gums and under their tongues.
“They’ll look behind your ears, they’ll look inside your ears, they’ll make you lift your chest, they’ll look in every crease, crevice, crease — everything you have, they want,” he recalled.
‘They’ll make you lift your feet and they look at you between your toes, they look at you between your fingers, they make you let down your hair if it’s up, they make you shake it,’ he described.
“They’re looking everywhere; there’s no nook or cranny they’re not looking in,” he added.
Then comes the worst part of the strip search: the “horrible” squatting and coughing.
“I didn’t even know there were two types,” he admitted. ‘That’s what they say, grab your thighs with your hands and bend your waist; do not bend your knees at all.
“So you bend at the waist and lean over so that now you’re at like a 90-degree angle and [you] “They are told to take their cheeks and spread them like a curtain, as if they wanted to see their puckered flower,” he described.
“These are exact words I heard come out of an officer’s mouth,” he said bluntly. “She said, ‘I want to see that girl with the puckered flowers.’
Jen admitted she didn’t know what he was talking about, but she started “coughing and coughing.”
“Later I found out that the flower was the back entrance and when you cough it flexes,” he shared.
After being sentenced to 10 years in a Florida state prison, Jen shared the traumatic and invasive experience of her first strip search.
Jen often shares her prison stories after spending 10 years in prison for robbery, grand larceny, and trafficking stolen goods across state lines.
Jen is now out of prison and raising her son, whom she gave birth to in prison.
Jen then went on to describe the second squat and cough maneuver, which she says is “completely different” from the first.
“So at this point she says, ‘Okay, now I want you to bend your knees and squat down to the floor; “Don’t do anything with your torso, bend your knees and go all the way down,” as if “We were trying to bend over and pee outside or something,” she described.
“Once you get there, they do the same thing: three loud coughs,” Jen explained. “And they better be brave because the idea is that if they are vigorous enough, if there is something in the front entrance, it will just fall.”
“I don’t know who invented this,” he joked. “Maybe it was a man because biologically speaking, your anatomy as a woman is not going to allow it.”
Jen said she followed the officers’ instructions and was completely “mortified” by what she saw.
“One of the worst parts is that women who are in their cycle just lose clots,” the former inmate added.
“I’m sorry to be vulgar, I’m really sorry, but you’re getting jelly balls, okay? It’s just not hygienic, it’s not good.”
Jen also described the smell as “horrible” and unhealthy.
‘There are women who cough so hard that they fart, it stank. There is a green cloud surrounding us, [there] “There are people who fart, there are people who fart,” he listed.
“There are people who literally cough so hard that they have little drops of urine, little showers of urine,” he continued. “I mean it’s a mess.”
At the end of the search, Jen said the room not only smelled bad but was also damp and slippery.
I’m ready to get out of there. I don’t even feel uncomfortable anymore because there is so much going on that I can’t even focus on the fact that I am naked in front of this lady.
“It’s crazy, anyway guys, that’s what the first strip search was like, it sucked,” the confrontational story concluded.
‘It was horrible it was so “Dehumanizing him was very humiliating,” Jen said.
He often shares his experiences in prison on his TikTok and YouTube channels.
Jen, who gave birth to her son while in prison, clarified in a previous TikTok that she didn’t spend a decade in prison just for robbery, but that she was also involved in her then-boyfriend’s criminal activity, and after he fled from the country. she was slapped with additional charges.
He previously made a video sharing what he would look for when searching a house to rob.
Jen mentioned bad weather, security systems and animals as green lights for burglarizing a home, as the former burglar shared her surprising insights into how burglars locate potential targets.