While you're in federal prison

# What conflict costs

How fights start varies by where you are. What a fight costs does not, because it is set by policy, and the arithmetic is worth knowing before you are standing in it.

The menu

## The sanctions

A fight produces an incident report (a disciplinary write-up) — a shot — which goes to a disciplinary hearing. Available sanctions include:

- Loss of good conduct time (days off for staying out of trouble), which moves your release date directly;
- time in the special housing unit (solitary), which is isolation and which is worse than anything you are currently imagining;
- loss of programming eligibility, which stops your earned time credits (time off earned through programming) from accruing;
- loss of visits, phone, and commissary (the prison store);
- a disciplinary transfer, usually to a higher security level, which resets every relationship you have built;
- and a reduced or eliminated halfway house (the halfway house before release) recommendation, which is the one nobody thinks about and which is frequently the most expensive of the lot.

The math

## The arithmetic

**A fight that lasts twenty seconds can cost months.** Not metaphorically — the good time and the lost credits and the shortened pre-release placement are all countable, and they add up faster than people expect.

It also does not matter much who started it. Both parties usually receive shots. Self-defense is a concept that exists on the outside; in a disciplinary hearing it is a mitigating argument at best, and often not even that.

Count what the credits are worth in your own case with [the time calculator](/resources/time-calculator).

The exit

## Stepping back without looking weak

The concern people have is that walking away marks you. In practice it does not, provided you use the correct channel.

The channel is your car (your social group inside). Leaving the area and letting your driver (an inmate who runs a group) handle it with the other group is not weakness — it is the expected procedure, and it is how the overwhelming majority of disputes actually resolve. Handling something yourself when it should have gone through the car is the thing that causes problems, not the reverse.

What you do not do, ever, is involve staff in a dispute with another inmate. There is no version of that which improves your situation.

Fork: how fights start varies by security level. At a low, the honest version — causes, the escalation pattern, and the procedure — is in [how conflict actually happens](/going-in/security-levels/at-a-low/how-conflict-actually-happens).

Keep reading — part 8 of 9

### [The economy](/going-in/while-youre-in/the-economy)

There is a functioning service economy inside every federal facility. It is not hidden. Knowing the going rates is what keeps you from being overcharged, indebted, or embarrassed in your first month.

For your people

## 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](/for-families) — 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](/resources/facilities) with [email alerts when visiting stops](/lockdown-alerts/subscribe), the [support group directory](/resources/support-groups), calculators for your release math, and [free answers](/contact) when they have questions.

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

**Need help with this? Just ask.**

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](mailto:josh@federalprisondude.com?subject=Inside%20question)

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.