TJ Parsell made a short film about his time in prison in 1978 when he was 17. This is what the psychiatrist who was examining him asked him. When he was sent to Riverside Correctional Facility he was drugged by several older inmates and raped. After the rape, he was won in a coin toss by a 30 year old black inmate doing 15-25 years for aggravated assault nicknamed Slide Step. Slide Step was described as being about six feet tall and muscular with broad shoulders and a scraggly beard. Slide Step protected him from any more rape and violence but he had to be Slide Step's "wife". Although one inmate insisted on still sexually harassing him. So he went and told Slide Step and Slide Step and one of his friends beat up the inmate and sent him to the infirmary. After that, no one bothered him. He said that Slide Step treated him well and like an actual wife more than a slave.
Until he was transferred to the Wayne County Jail without Slide Step. While in the jail, he was raped by 2 inmates. One he described as Nate, a muscular black inmate in his mid 20's who was awaiting sentencing for murder (he later got 99 years to life and was said to have passed out in the court room after hearing his sentence) and another inmate nicknamed Loud Mouth who was also black. They were part of the same street gang. He said that if Slide Step had been there, he'd have killed both of them. After, he was almost gang raped in a cell by a group of black inmates but was rescued by the guard sergeant who was black and happened to be passing by.
He was transferred to the Michigan Reformatory, a prison for 17-25 year old inmates where he belonged to a 20 year old white inmate he described as being a 6'5 bodybuilder who treated him like shit and like a slave. When the white inmate was up for parole, he sold him to a black inmate who was described as 6'5 and "had a frame that filled a doorway". He also treated him like a slave. He was later transferred back to the same prison as Slide Step.
