10 Things NOT to Do in Prison

A lot of my blog posts address things you should do to get along in prison.  Today I’d like to give some examples of things NOT to do, all of which happen to have been attempted by the same person, the forever clueless G-Money.  As one old-timer put it, “That boy is a crash-test dummy, just keeps on slammin’ his head into the dashboard again and again.”  In no particular order then, here are Ten Things NOT to Say or Do in a Federal Prison:

1.     Drop your trousers to change clothes in an open pod or cube (as G-Money did on his first week on the Beach here).  When advised not to do this, he compounded the problem by stepping right into…

2.     This reply:  “How ‘bout you don’t look at my ass?”  (Um, seriously?  I mean, never EVER accuse a man of looking at your butt unless you are prepared for a harsh consequence, which in this case was a swift punch to the face.)

3.     Do not go on about how your sentence is just a blip in front of guys who are serving 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 year bids.

4.     Do not openly refer to fellow inmates as “you prisoners.”

5.     Do not talk about how you will refrain from ice cream or candy or soda for the duration of your blippy 18-month bid (no one wants to hear it).

6.     Do not openly compare your case to others and explain why you got less time.

7.     Do not go into the tv room and sit on top of someone else’s blanket, then when confronted tell the guy to “lighten up, it’s just a blanket.”  (In here, a cardinal rule is that you do not sit on, touch, or move someone else’s stuff unless you have express permission.)

8.     Do not lecture a guy that he may not understand what you are saying because it may be over his head.

9.     Do not express anger at being gloved (in prison parlance this means losing a card game 5 times in a row, a full glove) in gin for the 4^th straight time by your truck driving redneck cellie, grab your cards and storm out of the cube. (Being a poor loser in prison is a license for trouble.)

10. After “taking the ball and going home” re 9 above, do not then attempt to smooth things over by explaining that you are simply not accustomed to losing games to those clearly of inferior intellect.

Maybe some of these transgressions seem silly to you, but here in prison, let me just say that each is an offense for which getting punched in the face would be considered a perfectly reasonable punishment.  Luckily (and incredibly), so far G-Money has only suffered that one punch out, though he has been threatened and yelled at too many times to count.  Most of the guys seem to have decided that he is a clueless, short-timer, smug asshole, not worth the trouble to straighten out.  For all of us, at least, he does provide some entertainment.