Surviving prison, mentally, physically, and with your record intact, requires a set of skills and strategies that nobody teaches you before you go in. The adjustment is enormous, and how you handle the first days and weeks sets the tone for everything that follows. This section covers the practical realities of daily life inside a correctional facility, how to navigate the social environment without becoming a target or a participant in activities that will extend your sentence, how to protect your mental health during a long sentence, what the research shows about maintaining family connections and why they matter for survival, how to use the time productively rather than letting it use you, and what the people who come out strongest have in common. The guidance here comes from someone who served 66 months in the federal system and built a business around helping the people left behind. Do the time. Do not let the time do you. See also our sections on Prison Violence, Prison Discipline, and Re-entry and Rehabilitation.
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Subject: Survive prison
Jail seems like the movie "Groundhog Day". Every day is exactly like the day before and the day before that. Even holidays lack any substantive change. Inmates with a long sentence has a sense of hopelessness and will find it hard to see optimism in anything.
Make no mistake, jail is lonely. Inmates are isolated and have to cope with boredom. The longer they are locked up, the easier it becomes to deal with - you get used to the...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
All of the parish prisons in Louisiana have daily recreation, they have TVs, they have some form of book exchange, others have a library - but boredom is an issue. The inmate that can compartmentalize their situation and block out the surroundings can get into a meaningful routine of self-improvement and actually come out of there a better, more rounded individual. You help by sending in reading material. That is one of the main reasons InmateAid exists is to make...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
It depends on the person. There is no easy prison time for any inmate. Sometimes the younger inmates have more hope for the future and realize they can do some "learning" while they are there. Hope is a great motivator, if an inmate can see a potential bright future their time will be used wisely.
Subject: Survive prison
We have answered this questions many ways in previous questions. It depends on what survival means to the specific inmate.
Prison is what you make of it. It can serve as a beneficial learning experience or it can be a living hell. Every inmate has a choice. An inmate can survive prison by simply following prison administration rules and respecting both officers and fellow prisoners. Offenders can make life harder on themselves by refusing to follow the direct orders of officers,...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
Reading is the great escape. Concentrating on things you can
control, not worry about things you can't - it is where the focus must lie.
Inmates need to get into a routine which will make their time go by smoothly.
They need to make a goal list of things to accomplish with all of this time on
their hands, to not just waste it playing cards and bullshitting. If they are
inclined, anyone can come out better than when they went in.
Subject: Survive prison
This is a genuine emergency and the most important thing to understand right now is that paying extortion will never end. That is not an opinion, it is the consistent reality of how prison extortion works. The moment someone pays, they become a confirmed source and the demands continue, escalate, and eventually move beyond money into territory that is far more dangerous and degrading. No amount satisfies it permanently. The people making these demands are not honoring agreements.
Your son needs...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
If you are comparing the two environments in terms of daily quality of life, state prison is generally considered better than county jail by most people who have experienced both and that is not a close call.
County jail is designed for short term detention. The infrastructure, programming, and daily routine reflect that purpose. Most county facilities confine inmates to a pod or housing unit for the majority of the day with very little to do and limited movement. Outdoor time...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
Most do, but the answer is surprisingly inconsistent and some of the facilities without it are located in places where the heat is most brutal.
Federal prisons generally have climate-controlled housing, though the quality and consistency of that cooling varies by the age of the facility and how well the systems are maintained. Newer federal facilities tend to be better equipped than older institutions, where aging infrastructure makes reliable cooling a daily challenge.
State systems are where the inconsistency becomes most striking....
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
Six weeks of isolation is definitely doable, but it's pretty boring. He needs to stay where there are always guards on duty. He might feel light a target because he is young, BUT make sure he just keeps his opinions to himself and doesn't crowd another person's space or get in their way (inmates are big on respect). He can do these last six weeks without incident just avoiding conflict of any kind and stay where there is supervision.
Subject: Survive prison
Self-surrendering to Fort Dix with a documented medical need is a situation the facility is set up to handle, and sleep apnea is one of the more common conditions that comes up during intake. The concern about dormitory-style living and the impact on other inmates is legitimate and actually works in your favor when making the case for keeping the mouth guard.
When you arrive and go through intake processing, declare the mouth guard immediately and explain what it is for....
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
Could you explain "3 yr.non-violent charges". We understand what non-violent charges mean but what is the 3 yrs? There is a point system that is used to determine a sentence's guideline. Criminal history, taking responsibility for the crime, going to trial or not and the value of the crime are all components to the length of the sentence. For instance, Bernie Madoff was a first-time, non-violent offender and got 150 years. Give us more information and we might be able to narrow down...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
This is a serious situation and the frustration of watching someone you love get repeatedly denied protection while facing genuine danger is one of the hardest things a family can go through from the outside.
The internal grievance process is the necessary first path even when it feels like it is going nowhere. A denied 805 request for administrative segregation is not the end of the road. The next step in the federal grievance process is a BP-9, which is a...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
Generally, no, and in practice, older inmates tend to have some of the smoothest experiences inside.
There is an unwritten respect that exists in prison culture toward older inmates that outsiders rarely hear about. Younger inmates typically leave older people alone. An older inmate who carries themselves with dignity, minds their own business, and does not insert themselves into conflicts that have nothing to do with them is almost universally left in peace. The prison yard has its own social logic...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
It depends largely on where you are doing your time. In some facilities and at certain security levels, gang affiliation does provide a form of protection that feels necessary to people who are new and uncertain about their surroundings. But it is not the rule and it is not the only way to survive a long stretch. The vast majority of inmates doing serious time never join a gang and never feel they had to.
The decision to join is one...
Read moreSubject: Survive prison
The most important mindset shift anyone can make going in is to decide that the time is going to work for them rather than against them. That is not a platitude. It is a daily choice that separates people who come out stronger from people who come out the same or worse.
Before anything else, make a plan. Decide what you are going to accomplish with the time available. Learn something. Get a credential. Get physically fit. Read everything you can...
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