Where you live
Cells or cubicles, depending on the facility. Either way: a bunk, a locker, one other man, and the question of where your space ends.
Cells or cubicles
Lows run either cells or cubicles, and which one you get depends entirely on the facility. Some were built as higher security institutions and converted, which means actual cells with doors. Others are open dormitories divided into low-walled cubes.
Either way you have a bunk, a locker, and a cellmate or a
Which style your facility runs is tracked in the facility guide.
Where your space ends
Learn where your space ends immediately. At a low, in a cell, with one other man, this is not a courtesy question — it is the mechanism by which two people share a very small room for months without incident.
On cellmates
You do not choose them and you may not like them. The arrangement works on a small number of understood rules: you do not touch their property, you give them privacy when they need it, you keep your half clean, and you handle disagreements between the two of you rather than making them anyone else's business.
If it genuinely does not work, people move. It is handled quietly through the units, not through staff.
The full set of unwritten rules — property, space, the television, the phone — is in the companion guide and applies here without exception.
Your first days
The actual intake begins when you hit the unit, and it is not conducted by staff.
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.
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.
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.
Somebody else just found out they got a low. Pass it on.