But that should apply to other favors as well, not just borrowing things.
For some fictional, cautionary advice, watch the HBO series The Night Of. The protagonist, who’s on trial for a murder he may or may not have committed* - but doesn’t remember committing - messes up while at Rikers Island pre/during his trial.
One real-life ex-con advice source I like is Michael Santos. Michael G. Santos - Wikipedia Not wrongfully convicted, but a pretty naive kid when he was sentenced to 45 years. Paroled after 26 years not too long ago. You can still tell - if you watch/hear him speak - how he decided early on to focus his energy on proving his worth to the authorities (and the tax paying law abiding citizens they represent) his worthiness for parole/early release.
As far as other prisoners, his advice seems to be keep your head down and be helpful but not overly friendly. If you have a good relationship with the prison authorities, you’re much less likely to be in a situation where you are relying on other inmates for protection. (Not a recommendation for snitching, just for being a model prisoner.)
- Trying to keep this pretty spoiler-free.
The book the series was based on is about life behind bars in 2004-2005, and presumably that’s a factual detail, so had been known for some time. That a militant nun is also claiming to be Jewish and asking for kosher meals, not to mention several black women, is part of the ironic humor of the series.
Yes. From what I’ve read about people in prison, the Bubba and beatings thing is fairly rare in most facilities. Most guys are screw-ups who are in the same situation as the hypothetical OP. Even most drug addicts, sneak thieves, or bodega robbers are not actually out of control homicidal maniacs, just people with poor judgement and other issues.
I can’t say for sure about US prisons. But in Brazil the prisons certainly seem to be controlled by violent gangs. Also, the Russian prisons, at least during the Soviet era.
Yes, it is against prison rules. But your main problem would be what HeyHomie described; the other prisoner will probably claim that you’ve entered into a contract with him, even though he never said this at the time. He did a favor for you so now you owe him a favor. And as Fotheringay-Phipps pointed out, you don’t to owe anybody any favors in prison.
Surprisingly, you should avoid doing anybody favors also. Let’s say you ate half an ice cream bar but you don’t want to finish it. You’re about to throw it in the trash can and another prisoner asks you if he can have it. You’re a nice guy and you were going to throw it out anyway, so you give it to him.
It seems like a meaningless gesture but you’re probably going to have other prisoners coming up to you and saying things like “Hey, how come you gave that guy an ice cream bar and you never offered me one? Are you saying you like him but you don’t like me? That seems like you’re disrespecting me. Maybe if you’re giving out ice cream bars you should give me one. Or we can settle this in the yard.”
Of course, the other side of this is that if that first guy asked you for the ice cream bar and you said no and threw it in the garbage in front of him, then he might take it personal and decide to fight you. Navigating your way through the social dynamics in prison can be difficult.
Interesting.
These folks are just a few bricks shy of the normal load of social awareness. And yet it has truly disastrous impacts on all their forms of interaction with others.
Lends some support to my amateur theory that humans are just baaaaaarely socially adept enough to operate in large complex societies. Just a small deficit from normal leaves them with too little to play this game at all, much less play it successfully.
Clearly if the level of social interaction common amongst prisoners was all the good any normal human could do then human society would be more like chimp society but with better math and language skills: living in small bands engaged in continuous combat with other bands and with everyone else in your own band.
Extra nasty, brutish, and short.
I disagree. Criminals are not just a small step away from everyone else. Most people do generally follow society’s rules. Criminals are the minority of people who do not.
I’m a Lockean not a Hobbesian. I feel the majority of people are willing to obey the rules as long as those rules are reasonable and fairly applied. So a group of people can work together and build a functioning society. Order can arise from within the group and doesn’t need to be imposed from above.
except for occasional warnings, suspensions and bans.
Just because it’s on TV shows doesn’t mean it’s real.
Good one.
Even so, the rules are essentially tolerated by the collective group and most people can live by them.
However, go to an unmoderated board to see how the bad apples can quickly drive out everything else.
Many situations are like that. Without policing (broadly construed) the bad often chases out the good or transforms some good into bad. E.g.:
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Traffic rules. Without properly conceived and enforced rules, a small number of jerks get a benefit from taking advantage of others’ civic behavior. That puts drivers in a situation where they often have to choose between behaving like pushy jerks or getting taken advantage of constantly. So more people behave like pushy jerks and you get the traffic situations for which many third world countries are infamous.
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Drug vendors. Without properly conceived and enforced rules, the kind of people willing to kill and risk being killed (the desperate and sociopathic) chase out those who would like to sell drugs in a conscientious way but aren’t willing to kill or risk getting killed over it. Unsurprisingly, the desperate and sociopathic do not make scrupulous vendors.
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Game cheating/cheap playing. Without properly conceived and enforced rules, cheaters and cheap players can reach a critical level and make non-cheating, non-cheap players decide to play less or engage in cheating/cheap play.
So, the rules have a direct impact on bad apples and an indirect impact on the good ones.
I have no doubt but, for my purposes, that’s the only reason I would be in there (I hope:))
Nah, there’s a lot of people around who are below average for social awareness, responsibility or whatever, but who still manage to function well or even very well. The distribution isn’t all that narrow and it’s multivariant for extra fun.
There’s a general rough function IME that racial tension increases and is more open the lower you go down the rungs of society. Prison is the bottom.
On the general question I guess it supposes the imprisoned innocent person is ‘gentile’ and out of place among criminals, like Andy Dufresne in the movie (at least initially). That might affect one’s time in prison. Whether you’re actually guilty or not of what you were sent there for would seem less directly relevant.
It might be similar to people saying how sex offenders or child molesters get hell in prison. If able and willing to fracture the skull of the first person to mess with them, probably not so much. And as others have mentioned, the TV/movie version of US prison violence is apparently highly exaggerated. So is the crime TV/movie version of crime and violence generally, but the viewer might realize ‘OK I live in NY and I know stuff like I’m seeing here is quite rare, but I know the show has to be interesting’ whereas maybe we’re more likely to accept at face value very violent prison TV/movies because we haven’t been there. Or I haven’t, and certainly don’t want to. 
Bolding mine.
“Genteel” or even “gentle” makes more sense there.
Considering that two posts in this thread have already recommended that people claim to be Jewish if in prison, maybe not so much
Yeah, I thought of that. Gentile before; not so much after.
Oops.
According to the movies, the US has been invaded by so many aliens (the out of space kind) and suffered so many zombie epidemics, it’s a wonder there’s any healthy, human Americans left.
What makes you think there are, Nava? 