I remember those days. At gun point they'd force us out of bed at the crack of dawn and make us strip down to put on an orange jumpsuit with a bar code on it. Tired and weary we had to be present in our cells not a second later than the appointed time, although we'd be punished for getting to our cells too fast or too slow. We each had an appointed eating schedule, failure to finish our meal on time or utilizing the restroom outside of the approved window was punishable by death.
Under the threat of starvation we were made to do the same thing day in and day out for the rest of our lives. Looking at a superior the wrong way, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, even getting up to stretch our legs at the wrong time were all punishable by death even though no one was ever quite clear on exactly what the wrong thing to say was or the wrong way to look at someone. It was entirely possible that someone would be put to death even if they had followed the rules perfectly, simply depended upon the mood of the people they dealt with that day.
On television there were shows and people would watch and cheer as other people were sentenced to death, often times they'd watch the victims weap as they were slaughtered. I remember a few shows where the public would mercilessly slaughter sixty or so people then reward the single survivor with a death sentence and tout how they were making dreams come true. The surviving gladiators were overjoyed to win their sentence because they were sentenced to be clubbed to death while the others were sentenced to strangulation, being clubbed to death was considered an honorable death while the strangled were laughed at and spat upon.
Ultimately everyone was laughed at and spat upon, but if you were clubbed to death you were laughed at and spat upon just because, if you were strangled you were laughed at and spat upon because you were sentenced to strangulation. Many chose to kill themselves rather than wait for their sentence, oddly enough this was a punishable offense, but it was the better option since the streets were lined with pins and needles and we had to walk barefoot.
There really was no question about it, this was hell.