10 Ways to Waste Your Time in Federal Prison

How to serve your sentence, stay incredibly busy, and accomplish almost nothing.

You can follow every prison rule, exercise two hours a day, read 100 books, and still come home unprepared. You might even convince your family you're using your sentence well because you're staying busy and losing weight.

For 17 years, I've encouraged people going to federal prison to read, write, exercise, and prepare for their release. Today, I'm teaching the opposite approach: 10 ways to waste your prison sentence. Some of these suggestions come from mistakes I made at Taft Federal Prison Camp. Others come from watching how prisoners spent their days.

Follow all 10, and you could return home knowing everything about commissary food and absolutely nothing about what you're going to do next.

1. Stay Busy All Day. Accomplish Absolutely Nothing.

Get up, exercise, go to your prison job, eat lunch, walk the track, call home, and make it to evening count. You'll be exhausted. Tell your family you've had another productive day and explain how you're working harder than most people in the dorm. Just avoid producing anything they could see: no writing, educational projects, or record of what you've learned.

For my first few months at Taft, I spent a lot of time exercising and avoided television. Michael Santos questioned that routine and urged me to write. I didn't particularly enjoy the criticism. On October 12, 2008, I sat down with his help and wrote my first prison blog. My mother received it in the mail and posted it online.

Try a simple test. If someone asked what you produced over the past month, could you show them a completed course, a book report, a writing project, or something else you've finished? You can spend every waking hour occupied and have very little to show for it.

2. Read 100 Books. Remember Absolutely Nothing.

Reading is an excellent way to appear productive. Finish three books a week, perhaps five. Keep count so you can tell everyone how educated you're becoming, but don't bother taking notes or explaining an author's argument. When you finish one book, grab another. By the end of your sentence, you'll have an impressive number to announce.

While reading Atlas Shrugged at Taft, I identified about 250 unfamiliar words and copied them onto index cards. I carried the cards to the track and studied them while walking. You don't have to read that book or memorize vocabulary. But consider what you want to learn and how you'll use it. If you're interested in accounting, business, or writing, read with those interests in mind. Write a book report, explain a chapter to your child, or discuss a book with your spouse.

Or keep collecting titles. Nobody can question your reading accomplishments if you never discuss what you read.

3. Make Big Promises. Break Every One of Them.

Tell your spouse you're going to write every day. Tell your children you're learning Spanish. Tell your case manager you're developing a release plan. Announce that you're going home with several certificates and a new professional skill. Then drop those plans whenever a better television show or an interesting conversation comes along.

Prison can give you plenty of time to talk about projects you've never started. I made a commitment to write after that first prison blog in October 2008, and my mother continued posting the entries. Someone outside prison could see whether I followed through.

For your own plans, pick one commitment that fits your prison schedule and keep track of the work. Three hundred words a day or one book report a week may sound unimpressive compared with a grand announcement. At least there's something to read at the end of the week. If you're following the bad advice, promise to write a novel and master three languages by Christmas.

4. Wait Until Prison Conditions Improve Before Starting.

Your bunk is uncomfortable. Your roommate won't stop talking. Your prison job is boring, the food is bad, and somebody interrupts you whenever you try to concentrate. Under those conditions, why would you start preparing for release? Wait for a better bunk, a quieter roommate, and a schedule built around your preferences.

You may be waiting until the morning you leave.

At Taft, early mornings gave me time to read and write. I'd get up around 4 a.m., collect hot water from the spigot, make Folgers, and sometimes eat a few apricots. The 5 a.m. count interrupted the routine, and I'd return to the work when count cleared. You may be better off reading in the afternoon or studying after your prison job. Get enough sleep, follow the rules, and find whatever hours work for you.

A prison routine will have interruptions. Your work assignment might change, and the room might never be quiet. What could you finish this week using the time and materials you already have?

5. Start Training for the Prison Olympics.

Become the best athlete at the prison camp. Run ten miles, walk another ten, do hundreds of push-ups, and spend the afternoon playing basketball. If you can fit in six or eight hours of exercise, even better. By release, you might be in spectacular shape.

I exercised about two hours each morning at Taft and came home healthier. I also saw men spending eight or nine hours on the track. One prisoner tore his ACL playing soccer and remained on the ground for roughly two hours because we couldn't simply carry him to medical.

Nothing wrong with getting in shape. But if you're spending eight hours a day exercising, think about what happens when you go home and have a job, bills, and a family waiting for you. Your spouse may not be thrilled when you announce you can't help with the children because you've got another four hours of prison-style exercise to finish.

And remember, the Prison Olympics aren't hiring.

6. Arrive at Federal Prison and Act Like You Know Everything.

You've run a company, managed employees, and negotiated contracts. Now someone who's served three years in prison wants to explain the routines to you. You've been there three hours, so naturally you know how the place should work. Tell everyone how your old company would have handled things.

After using a telephone in the common area at Taft, I touched the television screen without washing my hands. Another prisoner pulled me aside and explained that I shouldn't do that. I listened and didn't repeat it.

When you arrive at federal prison, there will be routines you don't understand and people who know more about the place than you do. Learn the official rules, listen when someone offers useful advice, and check informal suggestions against those rules. Or spend your first few weeks explaining how you ran your company.

7. Find the Most Miserable Person in Prison. Follow Him Everywhere.

Every prison has people who can tell you why everything is awful. The food, staff, work assignments, and educational programs are all hopeless. Find the biggest complainer and spend your afternoons walking the track with him. Soon you'll know every problem in the dorm, including problems that have nothing to do with you.

You can expand your education by joining every argument. Somebody took another person's seat in the television room. Two prisoners disagree about a work assignment. Someone owes somebody money. Hear both sides, offer your opinion, and check back tomorrow to see how the dispute develops.

At Taft, I watched boredom pull people into gossip, gambling, and arguments that consumed hours. Be friendly, but pay attention to whom you spend time with and what those conversations accomplish. If all you discuss is everybody else's problems, your own release plans can sit untouched for months.

8. Make Every Conversation About Yourself.

Call home and provide a full report on the terrible food, the roommate who kept you awake, and the latest disagreement in the dorm. Tell your family what you need sent in the mail. Hang up before there's much time to ask what's happening in their lives.

Family members need room to discuss frustrations, and prison can be hard on everyone. But you may also have knowledge that helps somebody else. A physician, accountant, engineer, teacher, or business owner can sometimes share useful skills through approved classes, writing, or correspondence.

At Taft, I wrote to Professor Pope at DePaul University and offered to answer students' questions about white-collar crime. The students wrote to me, and I responded. I also taught a stock market class for about a month. These were modest projects, but they required preparation and gave other people something useful.

Think about whom you could help with what you know, within prison rules. Your next family call might also have a more interesting subject than the commissary menu.

9. Keep Planning for a Career That May No Longer Be Available.

Suppose you've spent decades in financial services, medicine, law, or another profession that depends on a license or professional approval. You've now been convicted of a federal crime. Your old job may still be available after release, or you may face restrictions that change your plans. The easiest approach is to avoid finding out.

Before prison, I worked in financial services and real estate. I expected to resume selling real estate when I got home and even paid a licensing lawyer while I was at Taft. Over time, I had to confront the possibility that I wouldn't get my license back and started exploring writing and business education.

You may be able to return to the same profession. Find out rather than assume. Speak with people who understand the licensing requirements, investigate employers and industries, and consider where your existing skills could be useful. Waiting until a few weeks before release could leave you trying to answer questions you had years to study.

10. Count Every Day Until Release. Prepare for Absolutely Nothing.

Buy a calendar and cross off each day. Calculate the percentage of your sentence you've served and update everyone who'll listen. Make counting down your most demanding project, and try not to let release preparation distract you.

At Taft, I walked the track with a prisoner who had about five years left. He had a wife and young children and told me that if he could go to sleep and wake up five years later, he would. I understood the feeling. Prison days can drag. But his children would be five years older, his wife would have spent those years handling life without him, and the world outside would have kept changing.

You can count every day and still use the next 30, 60, or 90 days for something useful. Learn a skill, finish a course, research a job opportunity, or work on a release plan. Give your family something to talk about beyond the number on the calendar.

What Will You Have to Show for Your Federal Prison Sentence?

Before going to federal prison, consider how you want to spend the time you have. You may be there for six months, two years, or longer. You'll have work assignments, counts, meals, and responsibilities you cannot avoid. What you do with the remaining hours deserves some thought.

A prisoner can finish a sentence in excellent physical condition, having read hundreds of books, and still have no plan for employment, no new skills, and little documentation of how he spent his time.

You have opportunities to avoid that outcome. Write something, complete a course, study a subject you could use after release, or find an approved way to teach what you know. Keep records of the projects you finish and commitments you keep. When you speak with your family, share what you've learned and ask about their lives.

If you're already in prison, look at how you spent yesterday. Which habits are helping you, and which are eating up your time?

You've now got 10 suggestions for wasting your federal prison sentence. I hope you ignore them.

Justin Paperny