Federal prison FAQ

Questions people actually ask

Answered plainly. Most of these came to me in messages from men about to go in, which is why some of them are blunt and some of them are things nobody says out loud.

Some of the answers are short because the honest answer is short. Where I do not know something, I say so rather than guessing, and those questions are marked instead of quietly left out.

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Sixteen sections. Nobody reads an FAQ in order, so use the list rather than the buttons if you came here with one question.

Scope

Who this is from and what it covers

Men's facilities. I did eighteen months at a low. Where an answer is secondhand, differs by security level, or rests on a number that moves, it says so in the answer.

Women's facilities differ enough in social structure that answering from this vantage point would be guessing, so I do not. Be skeptical of anyone who claims to cover both without having done both.

This is the fast version. The reasoning underneath most of these answers is in the guides — before you go in, while you're in, doing time at a low, and getting out.

How to read it

Exhibit A

Three things before you start

The sections

Exhibit B

Pick the one you came for

1. Body and hygiene

Soap, showers, haircuts, and the discovery that nobody in the building is looking at your body the way you assume they are.

2. Cellies and living space

Who you sleep next to, how much of that you control, and what to do when it goes wrong. Less than you would like, and more than you expect.

3. Sex, loneliness, and the body

The fear almost everyone arrives with, and the questions nobody wants to ask out loud. Both answered plainly, because the television version is wrong.

4. Drugs and contraband

What is available, what it costs you, and what happens when it lands on you. Prison is not the rehab facility society seems to think it is.

5. Phones, mail, and communication

Three hundred minutes, five cents a minute, and every word of it recorded. How contact actually works, and the specific ways it breaks.

6. Money

The commissary cap, the store, two-for-one, and IFRP. There is no cash in here, which is why nearly everything you do economically becomes a debt.

7. Food

Medical diets, religious diets, spreads, and how people cook without a stove.

8. Fights, safety, and conflict

The thing you are most afraid of is not the thing most likely to happen to you. What the real risks are, and what stepping into one costs.

9. Getting in trouble

Shots, hearings, the hole, and how much good time a bad twenty seconds costs. Most of these numbers are set by regulation, so they are knowable in advance.

10. Staff

Your case manager is the most consequential person in the building for you. Who does what, how to ask, and what to do when nobody answers.

11. Time and release

How much of the sentence you will actually serve, how the halfway house referral works, and which sentence-reduction pitches to hang up on.

12. Medical

Sick call, dental, psychology, and medications. Manage your expectations down and your documentation up.

13. Family and visits

Getting people approved, what your kids should be told, and what happens when someone dies while you are in.

14. Work and programs

You will be assigned a job whether or not you find one first. Which ones are worth having, and why programming is not really optional.

15. Identity and difference

Being the only one of something in the building. Age, language, religion, disability, and the citizenship question that changes everything.

16. The head stuff

The part with the fewest procedures and the most weight. Stay busy is not a cliche here. It is the entire method.

Not here?

Exhibit C

Ask it and it gets added

Nearly every question on this page arrived in my inbox first. If yours is not here, send it — answers are free, and the good ones end up on this page for the next person.

These pages cover the general rules. Your situation has details they don't. Email me a question. Answers are free, and "you don't need to pay anyone for this" is my most common answer.

josh@federalprisondude.com

I answer in the order received, usually within a couple of days. I have a day job. If your situation genuinely needs more than an email, I take a limited number of consults, so say so and we'll work it out.

Pass it on

Somebody is about to go in with none of this. Pass it on.