Learn as much as you can about what you will need to survive in prison

Learn everything you can about prison life. There are numerous ways you could inadvertently breach an unwritten prison code. Nobody is going to treat you leniently because you are a newbie to prison; you need to get to know the rules and codes as thoroughly as possible before you are in the position where you need to abide by them.

There are also things you need to learn about how to present yourself in prison and how to behave towards guards and other inmates. These can be small things such as not maintaining eye-contact too long and “not noticing” if other prisoners are up to no good. All these small things can be woven into a mechanism that will enable you to survive in prison or jail.