Originally Posted by Lockjaw

You'd be terriblely wrong.

Let me run it down for you the way my cousin told me.

1) You pick a fight. You don't know WHO that guy is or who he's connected to. So let's say you pick a fight with a guy who is a lifer. He gets to kick your butt since you started ish with him and likely the guards won't do much to stop it since you started it up. But let's say you do this and you win.
The likelyhood of you jumping somebody that belongs to a set is VERY VERY high. You not only just made an enemy with THAT guy which is stupid to begin with as he'll be itching to get you back unless you kill him as you just made him look like a bitch, but you also just made the enemy list of every guy in his set. And it'll be that much worse if you attack somebody not of your race. Which means you are fucked because there is no way you'll live after that if you make the enemy of a large prison gang if you are by yourself. So that means joining a gang yourself to have them watch your back. If you are lucky they will accept you but that now means you are their property until you get out of prison and in many cases even after you are out. But that also means if they tell you to shiv somebody...you've got to do it. If they tell you to gang rape somebody...you've got to do it or else you are now marked by two groups of people and nobody else is going to touch you.

So as you can see the movie stereotype of come in like a hardass and you'll be ok is a lot of crap and likely will get you beaten horriblely or killed in the long run.

Just be respectful of other people and their property. Accept no favors from anybody as there is no FREE favor. Keep to your own race(sucks but it's true), and keep your eyes and mouth shut. You didn't see anything you didn't hear anything. And if at all possible if you remotely have any religious bone in your body getting in tight with the religious people as prisoners will be less likely to screw with one of the "model prisoners" as that will likely get the guards on their asses for no reason.