Prison 101

Try to make sure you have some money in your pocket when you go in. Of course you can't be expected to know when and where your going to get arrested but if your going to court to get sentenced to a prison term bring at least enough cash to bet the bare essentials and a television. If you go in empty handed you are going to have to wait until you get and fill out visitation forms and set up an account with the prison system then wait till your visitors get approved before they can send you money via money order. A money order takes a few weeks to clear and then hit your books before it will show up on your account and some prisons only let you go to the commissary store once every two weeks so with all this added up and combined you could possibly be looking at a month or two with no money or food and nothing to do but stare at Arsenio Wall. It's a prison joke, don't worry you'll learn it. Anyways, bring some cash or something you can trade for a T.V., beard trimmers, an electric razor, a cd player or radio, and some food and clothes. I recommend tobacco, not drugs because you don't need another court case if you get caught. Tobacco is only a class A ticket which means loss of commissary which you won't be going to anyways with no money on the books yet so don't worry about it. Maybe loss of phones or recreation too but that is short lived and you can work around it depending on the Corrections Officers in your Dorm or Block/Pod. If you are going to have to do the majority of your time in a cell then a television is a must. Without it you will slowly lose your mind. It's fine if your celly lets you use or watch his T.V. with him or while he is gone but that only works for so long and what if he gets transferred? Two inmates in a cell with no T.V. and nothing to do usually leads to fighting and problems. Entertainment is a huge part of keeping inmates under control. T.V.'s are like babysitters. Little 11 inch, electronic babysitters. Hey, you take what you can get inside. If you don't have any cash on you or contraband when you go in then you better have a hustle or learn one quick. You can usually do any type of contracting work or some variation of it inside a prison as a service to other inmates for trade in food/electronics. You better learn this shit if you want to survive.