Other than being separated from your family, the worst thing about being incarcerated is dealing with other inmates. In this post I will try to give you some things to know that might help.

Also, if you haven’t read What To Expect If I Am Going To Prison (part 1), What To Expect If I Am Going To Prison (part 2), or What To Expect If I Am Going To Prison (part 3), then I suggest you read them as well.

Have you ever known someone, from school, from work, or a neighbor or even a family member who seems to have no morals or scruples. This person doesn’t seem to care about what others think of them, they violate all of the behavior codes, and relate to others with disrespect and indifference. They don’t care about the feelings of others, they are strictly self serving, often belligerent, and cruel. They are often involved in shady deals, their credibility is nil, and they are the type who always take and never give. Such individuals often land in trouble with the law. The prisons are full of people just like this. And now that they are dealing with their own kind, they have to devise better and trickier schemes to pull on each other. Once committed to prison they usually only sharpen their skills and become more brutal and less caring; trickier and slicker with their schemes. People like this are right at home in a prison. These inmates doing what is called, “doing life on the installment plan”. Prison officials provide an inmate little protection from these predators. It is up to the individual inmate to avoid being victimized.
I could write an entire book explaining the types of games that inmates run on each other for personal gain. For example: You’re sitting around and bored. You sit and watch some guys play cards. Eventually one of the guys ask you if you’d like to play and you say sure. The guy tells you to find yourself a partner while he tries to find somebody. You get whoever you can while he goes and gets the guy that he’s used lots of times to scam new inmates. You and your partner have never played together before (and he knows that. You’re the new guy), but he and his partner already has elaborate signals already. They lose badly and say, “Let’s make it a little more interesting and play for an ice cream on store day.” An ice cream sounds easy enough even if you were to lose. So you agree. Next thing you know it’s ten ice creams you owe and you figure your luck is bound to change. Soon you’re down twenty ice creams and they agree to give you a break if you buy them what they want at the store. That little lesson only cost you each ten bucks. Next week you try to get some of it back and until you decide to quit, they will enjoy your money. That was an easy lesson; that is if you never went into debt to pay your bills.

Here is another, more serious, yet simple example: Two inmates Bob and Tom meet while awaiting trial in the county jail. This is Tom’s first time in jail, however Bob has been down before. During the endless hours with nothing to do, Tom tells Bob that his father is very well off financially. Both inmates are sentenced and transported to prison. Bob hires a couple of guys to attack Tom one day and then shows up in time to prevent the worst of it and appears to fight off the attackers. Of course the whole scene has been prearranged. Tom experiences the deepest fear that he has ever imagined and is in a state of desperation and helplessness. At this time, Bob suggests that Tom hire himself a bodyguard and volunteers for the job. Now Tom pays Bob weekly for protection from a danger that never existed. The money comes in from Tom’s father. Bob puts the word out about this scheme and the other inmates honor the arrangement and leave Tom alone (at least for a while). Eventually someone else will want to be cut in on the scam. The solution: Prevention; Tom should never have let it be known that he had access to money, he should have appeared to have very little, just enough to get by. This illustration is just a simple example of what goes on, actually most of the time; the schemes are more complicated and intricate. In prison, money is power. Money is the center and everything else revolves around it.

Predators in prison are after more than just money. When an inmate has a lot of time in the system, the need for sexual release and satisfaction becomes unbearable. Traditional methods of self-satisfaction isn’t enough for some. There are a lot of inmates that are there for sexual crimes. To them, Rape is just a walk in the park.

Engaging in a sexual act is a violation of prison rules, but even the most gung-ho officer realized the need for sexual gratification and the need to keep the peace. I am not saying that they condone it, but they might not make a serious effort to catch inmates doing it. Some guards don’t want to catch inmates involved in a sex act. The inmates will always do it at a time when they know that the officers are occupied with another duty, and they will usually post a sentry to watch for the officers that might be coming. My advice to the average inmate is to avoid the daddy’s, punks, and homosexuals altogether.

Avoidance is not all there is to it. A sexual predator will always victimize the weak; a person who puts up a ferocious fight every time he is threatened is not a good prospect. A person who appears to have loyal friends that stick together consistently is also a poor prospect. Most predators don’t want to fight, they want what’s easy. There are exceptions to every rule, but normally if they can make you do what they want by just scaring you into doing it then why fight and risk .

Prison gangs are found mostly in high security prisons especially Federal Penitentiaries. A constant power struggle between rival gangs is ongoing and murders are commonplace. Some gangs require new members to kill just to get in and the only way to get out is by their own death. My advice to the inmate is to avoid involvement with gangs, it appears lucrative up front to be a big bad gang member, but eventually they will control the members and have them do their bidding without limitations. They will constantly require the members to perform tasks to prove their loyalty and this involves breaking rules or endangering themselves. I know that prisons have their own set of rules and in some prisons, your only chance of survival is to be part of a gang. All I can say is try to avoid them, but if it’s a matter of survival, by all means, survive!

When an inmate is forcibly raped by a group of men, usually another inmate will offer the raped inmate protection from gang rapes, but it carries a price. The inmate must now have sex with the protector and as bad as that sounds, it is better than being raped by a group of men. The inmate providing the protection is called the “Daddy”, and the protected inmate is called a “punk”, or a “cock boy”. The “Daddy” may even fall in love with the “punk”, or he may grow tired of him and sell him or trade him to another inmate. He may even rent his services out to others for a fee.

Just because an inmate has sex with someone else of the same sex does not necessarily make them a homosexual. They are only doing it out of necessity. They may begin to enjoy it and become one though. This is called being “turned out”.

As you can see, there’s a lot of things that you should be aware of and a lot of things to look out for. Understand that for the most part, you’re dealing with the bottom of the barrel. With that said, I want to say that there are some good people in prison too. They’re just few and far between. For the most part, these inmates belong in prison, but there are a few that don’t. Just keep your eyes open and you’ll see who they are; they’re actions will tell on them.

Till next time, take care…

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