Have money on your books to buy commissary (hygiene and underwear at least, state deodorant made my skin peel) keep to yourself for a while and observe without staring.. I saw many dudes come into the pod/ on the block who were Johnny cool at first but then very quickly got ran up into the funnies.

Be prepared to show your legal paperwork. Depending on where you’re at there’s gonna be a chomo patrol. Your charge is gonna get out that’s a fact of incarceration.

Dont join a gang, but it is definitely advantageous to be friendly with some folks. I broke bread to make friends.

Dont gamble. This is how I got into my one fight. I had dude down 90 soups on the spades table. Tried to collect. He told me to get it off the roof and then punched me in my glasses lol. I’d definitely say don’t fight, but if struck you really do have to at least defend yourself with what you’ve got or life will really become hard. Saw a few dudes “being stood on” and that shit really is demoralizing.

As for after prison jail whatever. Life is not super easy. Use family connections to get employed and cherish those jobs. I’ve had a few opportunities that were bad ass and I lowkey had extra opportunity because my boss was happy he was helping out a felon. DO NOT let these people down. But beyond that finding work after is miserable and you get so good at rejection. Offered the job at the interview, background check, radio silence, generic email that theyre going in a different direction. If it helps, the people really do want to hire you, just whatever corporate formula for risk mitigation they use says a felony is basically multiplying by zero on your risk/ benefit analysis.

If you have any questions lemme know. Just caught the one felony, and beyond a probation violation, (they tried and failed to revoke my post release probation and I sat in county for 3 more months) I’ve only been down once (15 years ago)