How to Survive in Prison
Prison Break and all movies depicting life behind bars may be entertaining and frightening at the same time, but that’s far from reality. Life in prison is how you make it. Some of those scenes scare you out of your skin, and you don’t want to end up there. For some reason, perhaps a minor offense or mistaken identity, may lead you to serve time in a collection facility until you prove your innocence, parole or the last day of your sentence. If you are out on bail and risking a prison sentence, or know someone facing prison time, the following are useful tips for prison.
Here’s How to Survive in Prison
Respect your Fellow Inmates
Respect is usually two way. You give to get it. If you end up behind bars, your new friends and rivals will be fellow inmates, and you will not want to say anything you wouldn’t want them to tell you. Whatever you wouldn’t want them to do to you, avoid doing it to them. This doesn’t mean other inmates will not bring the fight to you. You’ll meet different people in the facility with their own characters.
Many inmates who do not follow this rule end up in trouble all the time, others are hurt, while others lose their lives. The worst form of disrespect is stealing. Inmates don’t tolerate such, and if caught, your friends will turn against you and beat you to a pulp.
Learn a Bit of Slang
If you are a first-time inmate, learning some prison slang may come in handy. Your loved ones may not understand the language, and you should avoid addressing them in it. For instance, if you tell them, “I was ‘doing a bird,” they might think you were doing something terrible in prison. “Doing a bird” is a prisonish word for doing time. There are more to learn.
Tech: means that’s a mobile phone
Basic rider: means someone who always breaks the rules and doesn’t even care
A shit and a shave: Basically means your sentence is under a year
Going on basic: This means that the little luxury you had in prison is taken away from you, e.g. confiscating your TV.
Bang-up is when your cell door is closed. However, my favorite of all time is burglars, slang for the security team because they come to your cell and take away your stuff. You better not shout that loud.
Look for Something to Do while in There
Prison is not a bad place entirely. There’s always one program to help you survive in prison or life after serving your sentence. That course you didn’t have a chance to take in college, you can find it in prison for free. Prison is not a punishment. It’s a collection facility where you can mend your old ways and become a disciplined person.
Look for those programs and take one that fits you. Listen to staff and their ideas. Talk to other inmates and ask them about the programs they signed in. Think about it. A program will make you busy, and you’ll have a skill that can put money in your pocket after you walk out of the front gate.
Some other things you can do to stay busy include:
- Work out and stay fit
- Devote yourself to faith and religion
- Read letters and books whenever possible
- Volunteer in prison
- Participate in sports
Stick With Race and Avoid Gangs
Unfortunately, there’s nothing like racial harmony in most prison settings. Whenever inmates are free to interact, most stick around members of their own race. This doesn’t mean you should ignore other races or offend them. Failure to respect members of another race may cause you problems or bring rivalry between two races.
Also, having close relationships with members of other races could cause alienation from the members of your own race. If this happens, you will be left all alone. It’s a scenario you don’t want to experience.
No matter what, don’t join gangs. Some join for protection, but instead, they become targets from rival gangs. Also, joining a gang means you’ll be running crime activities inside the prison, which may attract longer than the original sentence or transfer. Gangs don’t obey orders.
Don’t Do Drugs
You already know what drugs can do to you. Some inmates have watched their friends die due to heroin overdose. The prisons also perform drug tests on inmates even at 2:00 am. If you test positive, the guards move you to solitary confinement for about a month and extend your sentence. They can decide to transfer you in a higher security prison.
Solitary confinement is the place you don’t want to be. It’s hell inside a prison where you stay for 23 hours a day for a whole month. They bring food to you, and the one hour you get is for showering and making a phone call. The only reading material given to you is a Bible. Smuggling drugs attracts five more years on top of your sentence.
Share the Cell With the Right Person
You spend most hours in your prison cell, and your cellmates greatly impact you. Prison life can be so hard for you, especially if your cell mates piss you off with their language. Imagine being in the same cell with a farting champion, or someone puking or shitting all night at the toilet close to your bed.
If you don’t want to share your prison cell and have nothing to lose, you have a few options. Tell them you are a bed wetter, shit, and don’t flush the toilet, and puke often. Nobody will want to share a cell with you. You can also stage a fight, but things might turn the other way for you. Make friends with prisoners with a lifestyle like yours. Maybe then you can share a cell.
Develop Good Talking and Listening Skills
If there’s a place you should choose your words wisely, it’s in prison. You’ll want to talk about yourself. Is there even a better way of passing the time in jail than talking and reading? However, most prisoners want someone who speaks once and listens twice.
Don’t go opening up to anyone who acts friendly. Some of them may be collecting intel for their next crime via their outside links. Know what’s going on and stay updated.
Avoid Homosexuals
HIV infection rates are higher in prisons. Homosexuals are also considered lesser human beings by other inmates. They are made fun of and humiliated. Your girlfriend could be the same to another prisoner, and jealousy leads to fights. If you have heard the “don’t pick the soap” joke, that’s not the reality in prisons.
Gangs have zero-tolerance for homosexuals. They despise them. Some gangs are known to beat up members who are homosexuals, and when members of a gang decide to flex their muscles on you, you’ll end up in the prison ward.
They are brutal, and they boot-kick you on the head, chest, and even your genital area. If you are gay, you better hold your horses while in prison, just like the straight inmates who will not be seeing their partners for a while.
Leave Your Ego Outside
Only the most humble ones finish their sentence without losing a single hair. Avoid locking eyes with other prisoners or invite trouble. The prison is full of stupid and manipulative people. They might be the correctional officers or life imprisoned inmates with nothing to lose. Avoid them at all costs.
Don’t enter another inmate’s cell without their permission. That’s where they store their stuff, and in prisons, every stuff is precious. A half cigarette is worth tens of dollars in prison value, and a prisoner can kill you for touching it.
Never ask an inmate what they’re in for. You don’t want blows to rain on you. Instead, ask them, “what were you accused of?” The truth is that some inmates may have been accused of something they didn’t do and are only victims of fate or circumstances.
Avoid Talking to Guards
Unless the guards are asking a general question, avoid talking to them. Dare not tell guards about what other inmates are doing. Just mind your business. Prison guards despise snitches more than the prisoners themselves. If you anger them, they will tell other inmates you are a snitch with all the proof they have.
You will get a transfer before they hurt your skin, if lucky. In no time the inmates in the prison you moved to will discover that you are a snitch, and you’ll have to watch your back all the time until your release.
Correctional officers can’t protect you in prison. Remember, the inmates hold some resentments behind bars, and if they find out that you snitched in them, you’ll be lucky to wake up the next morning in one piece.
Unfortunately, some inmates don’t live to see their last day in prison. Prison is unsafe. However, following the above ten tips for surviving will help you pull through and complete your sentence. Letters and visits from your loved ones will keep you going and motivated. Don’t let them down.
