What Should I Do In My First 30 Days In Federal Prison?

Our weekly live webinar will focus on the first 30 days in federal prison.

What Should I Fear More Than My First Day In Federal Prison?

A father called me three weeks before his son's 30-month sentence. His parents were on the phone with him, worried sick about that first day. I told them day one is not the problem. Day one you squat, you cough, you walk into a dorm full of strangers, you find your bunk. It is uncomfortable, but it passes.

What should worry you is day five. Day fifty. Day one hundred. That is when the newness wears off and you have to decide what you are doing with your time. If the only thing keeping you up at night is tomorrow morning, you are worried about the wrong day. The men who struggle in federal prison are not the ones who had a rough first 24 hours. They are the ones who never figured out what to do with day fifty.

What Are The Biggest Mistakes People Make In Federal Prison?

I filmed a short listing six mistakes I watched people make, including me. Someone will tell you to forget the outside world, live your life, they'll live theirs. That is horrible advice. Call your family. Write them. Do not go quiet because someone in the yard told you distance is strength.

I spent too much of my own time in the first months obsessing over the career I had lost, the accolades, the title. I had not accepted that I was starting over. Every hour spent mourning a career that is gone is an hour you are not spending building what comes next.

New prisoners also hand out advice before they have earned the right to. Men who have been inside for years and decades do not want to hear how to run the compound from someone in his first week. Keep your mouth shut. Study the environment before you try to manage it.

Do not decide your life is over because of a felony conviction. It is easy to search it online and convince yourself of that. People have built businesses, written books, and rebuilt families after a felony. Learn from them instead of assuming you are the exception.

And do not complain about your sentence to a man doing decades. I served 18 months. I met men doing 20 years. Nothing shuts down a conversation faster than a short timer whining about his time in front of someone who has been counting his in years, not months.

What Is The Most Dangerous Thing In A Federal Prison Camp?

My first day at Taft I squatted and coughed, went to laundry, found my bunk, ate in the chow hall, and stood for the 4pm count. By five that evening I was walking the dusty track with a man doing six years for Medicare fraud. He owed victims tens of millions of dollars. He had pled guilty. And on that track he told me he was the victim. The judge's fault. His lawyer's fault.

That is the moment it hit me. The most dangerous thing in a federal prison camp is not violence. It is deciding you are the one who got wronged. I was in that camp because of decisions I made. The hard part was not the walking or the count. It was making sure I did not spend my sentence next to men who had convinced themselves someone else was to blame. I ignored that man for the rest of my time there, and I ignored the others like him, because misery finds company fast in a place like that.

Epictetus wrote about the difference between what is in your control and what is not. Your sentence is not in your control anymore. The verdict is not in your control. What you do with the next 30 days is. A man who spends his time arguing that the judge got it wrong is spending his control on the one thing he cannot change and ignoring the only thing he can.

Why Should I Keep My Mouth Shut Instead Of Running To Staff?

A wife called to tell me her husband was ostracized on his compound. Something went missing from his open locker. Instead of buying a lock at commissary and moving on, he reported it to a guard. The guard searched lockers across the unit. Now nobody on that compound will speak to him.

I never locked my own locker at Taft. If something is missing and your locker was open, that is on you, not a reason to bring staff into another prisoner's business. Federal prison is a foreign world with its own rules. Running to a guard over a missing item breaks one of the first ones. Keep your mouth shut. Buy the lock.

Why Is It Dangerous To Get Friendly With A Guard?

A lawyer in my dorm decided early that he did not belong with the rest of us, even though he had pled guilty like everyone else. He spent his days talking to one guard at the front of the dorm instead of the men around him. I would walk to the track and he would be talking to that guard. I would walk back and he would still be talking to that guard.

One day the guard mentioned he could not afford tickets to a football game he loved. The lawyer, casually, offered his own season tickets. The next day he was written up for attempting to bribe an officer. He went to the hole. He lost his good time. He transferred. Guards are there to confine you and log your conduct. They are not your friends, and the ones who seem the friendliest are often the ones most dangerous to misread.

How Do I Sleep In Federal Prison?

A 16-year-old called me about his father, one month into his sentence, who could not sleep. Locker slams. Bright lights. Men moving in and out of the TV room after count. I told the kid to have his father change his schedule if he was healthy enough to do it. Wake at 4am, while the dorm is still quiet. Push through two hours of real exercise: weights, running, whatever he could do. No TV. No table games during the day. By evening, if he pushed himself hard enough, he would be too tired not to sleep.

It worked. The kid called back to say thank you. Sleep in federal prison is rarely about the mattress. It is about what you do with the sixteen hours before you lie down.

How Do I Make Reading Count In Federal Prison?

A few months into my sentence I told Michael Santos I had read more than 20 books. He asked what I had learned from each one. How each one would help me when I got out. One clear takeaway I could use immediately. I could not answer him. I had been reading books the way you watch a movie, nothing written down, nothing retained.

From that point forward I made notes on every book: why I read it, how it would help me, and one takeaway I could act on right away. Reading without notes is passive. Reading with notes is a document, something you can hand to a judge, a case manager, or an employer later, evidence of what you actually did with your time.

Does The First 30 Days Matter After I Go Home?

A man in Los Angeles called me after he had made it through prison, the halfway house, and home confinement, all the way to supervised release. He traveled outside his district without permission. His probation officer is now moving to send him back. Five years after federal agents raided his home, he is right back where he started.

The habits you build in your first 30 days, the discipline of following rules you do not like, the discipline of documenting what you do, do not stop mattering once you walk out the gate. They are the same habits that keep you out of a courtroom five years later. Nobody stops watching, and nobody stops keeping records, including you.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the biggest mistakes people make in federal prison?

Ignoring family because someone told you to focus on your own life. Obsessing over the career you lost instead of the one ahead of you. Giving advice before you have earned any standing. Assuming a felony ends your future. Complaining about your sentence to men doing decades. Each one costs you standing with the people around you.

How do I adjust to federal prison?

Slowly, and mostly by watching first. Learn the schedule, the count times, the unwritten rules of your dorm before you try to change anything. Keep a routine: wake early, exercise, eat, work, read with purpose. The men who adjust well are the ones who study the place before they try to run it.

Should I write every day in prison?

Yes. I started October 12, 2008, and never stopped. Writing daily, whether it is a journal, a book report, or notes on what you learned that day, builds a record. That record is what you show a case manager, a probation officer, or a judge later. Nobody remembers a promise. They remember a page.

What productive activities should I complete in federal prison?

Read with notes, not passively. Exercise on a real schedule. Take any education or vocational program your facility offers. Document what you complete. First Step Act credits and RDAP eligibility both depend on productive activities the Bureau of Prisons can verify, not on your word.

What records should I keep while I'm in prison?

Keep a written log of what you read, what you learned, what programs you completed, and what you did each day. This is the same record I built starting at Taft. It became the reason my probation officer approved me to work with felons and speak around the country after I came home.

Can a probation violation send me back to federal prison years later?

Yes. A man I know made it through prison, the halfway house, and home confinement, all the way to supervised release, then traveled outside his district without permission. His probation officer is now moving to revoke his supervision. The habits from your first 30 days do not stop mattering once you go home.

Ready to build your own record?

Hi, I'm Justin Paperny.

My life changed when, with help from Michael Santos, I started creating assets that did not exist before: blogs, book reports, narratives, release plans, and books, Lessons From Prison, Ethics in Motion, Prepare, and After The Fall.

That work changed my life. I believe the same process can help you too.

That is why I produce daily content teaching you how to do it.

But reading my blogs and watching my videos is not enough. You have to create.

If you need a guide, as I did, schedule a call or call us at 949-799-3277. If you can engineer the right message on your own using our tools, great.

The key is taking daily, incremental action.