Jobs and programming

You will have a job. Which one you get depends mostly on whether you asked.

You will have a job

At most lows it is required. The usual assignments:

• Food service. Long hours, early, and the single best job if you care about eating. Access to the kitchen is a real economic position.
• Orderly. Cleaning the unit or a building. Light work, low pay, easy schedule.
• Facilities and maintenance. Plumbing, electrical, grounds. Genuinely skilled work in places, and the crews tend to be good ones.
• Warehouse. Physical, varied, and generally regarded as one of the better assignments.
• Education. Tutoring, which is available to people who can teach and which is easier to get than most.
• UNICOR. Federal Prison Industries, where present. Pays multiples of everything else and has a waiting list.

Ask early

Ask for what you want early. The good assignments go to men who asked first, not to men who were assigned.

Do the classes anyway

Programming matters for reasons unrelated to its content: participation is what accrues your earned time credits. The classes themselves are pitched at people without a high school education and you will find them close to useless. Do them anyway. Sit there, complete them, collect the credit.

What those credits actually do to your release date: the time calculator.

Hand the rest of this site to your family

You will not be able to look things up once you're inside. They can, and this is where: everything written for the one waiting — a twelve-part guide to mail, visiting, money, and your release date, plus their own FAQ and checklist. Alongside it, a guide to every facility with email alerts when visiting stops, the support group directory, calculators for your release math, and free answers when they have questions.

Send them the link before you report, not after they can't reach you.

Somebody else just found out they got a low. Pass it on.