The O R Guelph

Mid 60's,  I got a deuce less &12 for "armed robbery".  Just turned 16 and with my friend at the time Ivan, we stuck our thumbs out and headed down the 401.  From Montreal to Kitchner where his dad lived and as fate would have just west of Cornwall a 59 Potiac come to a screeching halt, we got a ride after walking for 2 hrs or so.  It just happened to be another friend of ours 17 year old Tommy running away to Toronto,with his girlfriend, in a stolen car.  We were happy to get a ride and not concerned about the car.  None of us had a dime in our pockets nor sence in our minds.   I think we were approaching Bellville running out of gas and saw a car parked on the side of the highway. Pulled up in front of it, and all four of us walked to the drivers door an found a guy sleeping behind the wheel.  Actually, I asked if he could give us a few bucks to help us out.  He told us to (bug off) or something like that and Tommy's girl slipped a knife into my hand that she had been carrying for protection.  ....That cost us all time in jail.  I got a deuce less and twelve... Changed me dramatically, not so much the time but the "O R ", experience.  Introduced and adopting real brutallaty.            
That's where gangs are developed from the towns you come from or districts of a larger city,  we were from Montreal,  the only kids from Montreal.
Tommy was a fair size,  I was tall and lanky and Ivan was a game kid.  So as long as we stayed together no one really approached us in an aggressive manner and also there were lighter picking from the "chain" we came in on.  So the two weeks or so in reception were relatively uneventful for us but we did begin to see victims being picked out of the newcomers we went in with.
Muscling for others rations was the primary target, tobacco and lighters were high on the list.

Shawbridge training school.

Can't say a lot about "the farm" because I wouldn't stay there.  First time I went was for taking my Dad's company car for a joyride at 14 but that was after a string of juvenile court appearances for everything from burglaries, car theft and shoplifting incidences.  The first week I was there I was swarmed in the gym while watching a floor hockey game while sitting on the edge of the stage.  Someone through a coat over my head and 3 maybe 5 guys started punching and kicking, it lasted a few minutes and I ended up with a broken tooth and a few bruises.  After a few questions about the incident from duty supervisor about the identity of my attackers I was sent back to my "cottage".  The explanation I got from the boys in the locker room was that it was a test of my character.
And although I'd been in many fights on the street even gang fights I had never really been introduced to "swarming".  Another tool to use in my fight to survive!

Archambault (maximum security) in the late 70's early 80's was a bit of a madhouse.  In a population of about 300 in one year at least 8 people got killed and I don't remember how many we're severely beaten by both guards and con's.  The years leading up to the riot that saw several guards killed was just a period total chaos.  Rumors were being spread by both guard and cons. About prison breakouts, informers, weapons, drugs and murder plots.  I don't know if it was divine intervention that sent an informer to the administration with a story about me conspiring to breakout but it got me locked in segregation for a year and in the it rim saved me from being swallowed up by the riot, because I can honestly say I don't know what role I would have played nor do I know if I would have survived.  The young man that I was recognized only one emotion, ANGER.

Last "bit"

Last time in was a 2 week wait for my parole officer to return from vacation to lift
a suspension  impose for boosting, ten years after being paroled on a life sentence.
The life sentence was my third federal bit.  Went down for the "non-capital" murder
of a police officer.  He died in a shoot out during a drug raid.  I went to prison alone
 although there we're four individuals in the vicinity.  I didn't fire the fatal shot and didn't know that anyone had been shot until after my arrest. I had heard the gunfire.  Spent seventeen years working my way through the system where I watched several men get beaten or stabbed many succumbing to their injuries.

Juvenile run in institutions began in Montreal maybe about the age of twelve.  Can't even remember what it was for, I'd been running with a rag/tag street gang for three or four years by then and had long since graduated from shoplifting to burglaries and joy riding.  It was on St.Denis street and I think it was at the last days of St.Denis being the "juvy" center for the city because for the next few years every time we'd be arrested it was to St.Valliers center for a few weeks.

Better than half of the past 50yrs was spent in prisons and or "correctional institutions". Beginning in Montreal's juvenile detention and ending in a federal minimum security prison farm outside Kingston.