It is different everywhere probably, but in my experience the guys who were most friendly were the older guys with big grey beards and marijuana tattoos, and who were in for non-violent shi* like drugs. In the white crowd, the WORST guys were the wigger types, who thought/wished they were black and were all into playing “hard” and “gangsta”. Also in general, lifers are less trustworthy than those with shorter sentenes, as those guys have nothing to lose by fu**ing with you and are all into prison politics and fighting to be top of the garbage heap. People like myself with shorter sentences and A LOT to lose are way less likely to get involved in senseless violence against other inmates. The guy with the swastikas on his fingers had a three eyar old daughter, also he planned to get his tattoos removed once he got out. He got out 4 months before me, and I found out later he actually got shot to death in Camden 2 weeks after being released. He was buying weed, and ironically got shot to death by the black dealer when the guy saw the tattoos on his fingers and they got into an altercation. It was really ironic and messed up, since as I said he had even planned to have those removed but had not gotten around to it I guess. Also I felt conflicted on the issue, since I knew just a few years prior if I had seen those tats I’d probably would have wanted to kill him too. These days I just don’t know what the hell to feel anymore. The Jewish side of me sees guys covered in swastikas and just wants to see them dead, but another part of me remembers that guy and a lot of others I met in prison who showed me so much kindness and friendship especially during those first difficult months. I guess the moral of the story is never judge a book by its cover, and prison makes for strange bedfellows.
My experience was that the subject rarely came up. When it did, you’d get various responses.
A few would claim innocence but that was relatively rare. Some would admit to their crimes but often as a means to an end: “I stole that car. I admit that. So you can see when I do something wrong and get caught, I man up and admit it. So you can believe me when I say those drugs you found in my cell aren’t mine.” Some would see themselves as a victim of circumstances: “Sure, I dealt drugs. It was just an ordinary way to make a living in my neighbourhood. But then that new DA got elected and he wanted to send a message, so there was big sweep and I got sentenced to three years.” And some are just philosophical about it: “Yeah, I fucked up. Nobody’s fault but mine. When I get out I won’t do that again.”
I was unusual in that part of my job was to review criminal records - many security people almost never have knowledge of what a prisoner’s crime was. You have to understand that the prison system doesn’t really care what you did outside. We don’t decide when you go to prison. We don’t decide when you leave prison. We’re only concerned about how you act inside. I’ve seen model prisoners who were incarcerated for major crimes and I’ve seen guys who committed minor crimes be some of the worst problems in the prison.
Could you provide a cite for this, please? 
PS:
A big “thank you” to those of you who’ve taken the trouble here to tell us their experiences of life behind the walls.
See Appendix 12 on page 27 of “Prisoners in 2009” a PDF published by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
From Appendix 12: In 2009 there were 1,443,500 total male prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction; 479,000 white males; 563,500 black males; 303,500 hispanic males.
563,500 + 303,500 = 867,000 non-white male prisoners.
Not surprisingly, Wikipedia has a page on incarceration in the United States that touches on racial demographics.
Measuring white against “non-white” is kind of disingenuous, though. You can do that with any of the categories. Blacks are greatly outnumbered by “non-blacks.” And note that Hispanics are a smaller minority than whites. Everybody in prison is a minority when you measure it that way, and whites are not the smallest. if prisons are “overwhelmingly non-white,” they’re also “overwhelmingly non-black,” and even more “overwhelmingly non-Hispanic,”
Do prisoners lose the respect of their fellow inmates by being “model prisoners”? Do you need to balance between earning “good behavior” notes and being liked by the other prisoners, or do most folks understand that refraining from irritating the guards is just what one has to do?
No, that would either be the Jews or the Eskimo’s I would think. 
And don’t even get me started on the left-hand anabaptists.
I was on the other side of this. But my impression is that a prisoner is okay if he’s just looking to avoid confrontations. He’s going to be looked down on if he’s seen as attempting to be friendly to the guards.
And that works both ways. I used to always tell new guards that they should watch out for any prisoner who tries to be their friend - there’s a good chance they have an ulterior motive.
Yep, check out Games Criminals Play for an excellent, detailed overview of this subject. Should be required reading for anybody employed in this field.
Thank you.
Given that their definition of “White” excludes anyone who is “Hispanic”, this seems to imply that (say) Charlie Sheen wouldn’t count as “White” for the purposes of these figures. And where are the “mixed race” prisoners…?
These figures seem to raise all sorts of questions!
My mother did a stint in a federal prison back in the early 2000s for money laundering. Now granted she was in a women’s prison so her experience is not identical to that of every male prisoner. I asked her about the child molester thing; her response was that the only way anyone knew about your crime was if you told them, and you’d have to be suicidal to admit to molesting kids. The only other way other prisoners could find out what you did was if a guard blabbed, which I imagine is entirely possible if there’s a prisoner they want to see suffer. Probably the smartest thing you could do if you were a child molester or killer was to lie and say you were in on drug charges, which is so common that no one would think twice about it.
Also, holy crap, what the hell was your friend doing in camden?? I used to work for a not-for-profit there and Camden is almost totally black and puerto rican. No way would I buy drugs in Camden if I were a white guy with swastika tattoos. I’m not saying your pal deserved to die, because I sure as hell wouldn’t want to get shot in the street like a dog, but he should never have set foot in Camden.
Unfortunately, the internet has now created a new problem in this area. Some prisoners have people on the outside go through online registries of sex offenders and locate sex criminals who are incarcerated in their prison. They then go and extort the sex criminals with threats of revealing them to the other prisoners.
A higher percentage of white people in jails are non-violent offenders than that of the other groups. If you’re talking about maximum security prisons for violent offenders, the percentage of whites would undoubtedly be a lot lower.
Actually it is the opposite. Over half of Latino inmates are classified as “white” regardless of whether they actually are or not. Also Middle Eastern, Indian and various other groups all usually go down as white.
You don’t need to take my word for it. Check out the photos of sex offenders on www.familywatchdog.us, they get their information from these same U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics type agencies. I won’t go into the politics of why they do this.
Some examples:
If you don’t retaliate or get help when the blacks spit on you or trip you, will things escalate or would they get less worse over time? Would they stay the same?
I am curious if you know anything about women’s prisons. Do they segregate themselves into gangs based on race, too? If a person (male or female) goes to jail and doesn’t want any friends or to be part of any gang, can they?
I couldn’t help but notice that all three of these guys are in the 5’4” – 5’6” range. Is it just a coincidence, or do child molesters tend to be short?
He’s showing you examples of Hispanic men (2 of them) who are classified as White. Hispanic men tend to be shorter.
There are probably a few of them, but they don’t like to make their presence known for fear of the Aryan Brotherhood gangs that dominate SAG. 
Hi. Great discussion.
I found this article from BeliefeNet.com and it says that the Jewish communities abandon Jewish prisoners for the most part and that they do have problems of anti semetism which comes from wardens, guards, as well as inmates. I think generally it is tough to be .001% of the prison system. There is protection in numbers in and out of prison but much more in prison. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if each prison had a different dynamic for dealing with Jews and other smal minorities.