Resources - Preparing4Prison

Preparing you for your upcoming journey in the best way possible is our goal. Here is a list of some resources other than those we offer that might help you. Our goal is to put all of the best known resources in one place so you won’t have to hunt and search and waste your valuable time.

Please let us know if you come across any links or additional resources we may have missed that we should add to this list.

Frequently Asked Questions

What will happen next?
What attorney should I retain?
Is there any way out?
Should I proffer a plea agreement?
What is the court process like?
Where will I go?
What is life in prison REALLY like?
What are my rights?
Can I do anything to shorten my time?

We have accurate, clear, and practical answers to your questions to help you prepare.

Helpful Links

Glossary

13 1/2: 12 jurors, 1 judge, and 1/2 a chance; seen in prison tattoos.

5150: Crazy. Usually the section of the state’s general statutes concerning competence to stand trial.

AB: The AB, or Aryan Brotherhood, is also known as the Brand. They are a white supremacist prison gang with a fierce reputation. Prisoners can’t just join them; they have to be invited to become a member of the gang.

Agitator: An inmate who manipulates other inmates into fights normally for the pure enjoyment of watching the other inmates fight.

All Day: A life sentence.

All Day and All Night: Life without parole.

Associate: Another inmate who’s not a friend but with whom you’re breaking the rules.

Back Door: Slang for a corrections officer who smuggles in contraband substances in exchange for monetary payment.

Back Door Parole: To die in prison. i.e. he got the back door parole.

Bag Head: Heroin addict.

Base-head: Refers to a cocaine addict.

BB Filler: Body Bag Filler; usually a very ill prisoner.

Bean Slot: The opening in the cell door where food is delivered, usually in doors in restricted housing unit.

Bid: Prison sentence.

Big Bitch: A death sentence.

Binky: A binky is a homemade syringe that consists of an eyedropper, a pen shaft, and a guitar string. Getting a real syringe behind bars is understandably difficult, so prisoners make due with the resources they have.

Bird-Killers: Hobbies or activities that kill time or help to whittle away one’s prison sentence. For example, sewing, tattoos, drawing, etc.

Blues: Prison clothes. For women whose uniforms are a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, it’s changed to “color of shirt.” Blues, Greens, Browns, etc

Board: The entity that adjudicates prison disciplinary reports. Usually just one guy in a tiny office.

Bo-Bos Prison-issued tennis shoes. See also Kung-Fu Joes, Skippies.

Bone Yard: Trailers used for conjugal visits. Archaic.

Boned out: Chickened out.

Books: 1. Stamps. Books of stamps are used as currency. 2. An inmate’s trust account, money held by the state for their purchases at commissary. E.g. “She’s got money on the books.”

Boss – A term used by inmates to refer to officers working as guards. Began in the early years of penitentiaries as “Sorry son of a bitch,” spelled backwards. Inmate bosses are simply more experienced, wiser inmates who advise others.

Boosters: Booster sessions are encouraged by case managers and treatment providers to be taken by inmates at particular risk to reoffend after release. They are part of a broad risk management strategy that includes the Stages of Change and Relapse Prevention. They are a component of the regular “aftercare” many recently released offenders, especially mentally-disordered offenders, should receive in order to reduce the likelihood of recidivism.

Booty Bandits: Incarcerated sexual predators who prey on weaker inmates, called “punks.”

Box Cars: Two consecutive life terms.

The Box, a.k.a. The J’s or The Hole: Disciplinary confinement. 8 X 10 cells occupied by two men, 24 hour/day lock down broken only by three showers per week.

Brake Fluid: Psychiatric meds such as liquid Thorazine.

Brogans: The state-issued work boots that inmates wear.

The Bubble: Another name for the officers station in any prison dorm. It gets its name from the continuous set of windows on all sides which allow the officers to see what’s going on anywhere in the dorm.

Bucket: Another term for the county jail.

Bug: Correctional staff member, such as a psychiatrist, who is deemed untrustworthy or unreliable. Inmates are cautious of “bugs” and will seldom ever mention other inmates to them.

Bug Juice: Term referring to depressant drugs, deliriants, or intoxicants.

Building Tenders: Inmates that were selected by guards to assist correctional staff. Tenders were meant to maintain order among the inmate population (often through the use of force), as well as serve as intelligence gatherers.

Bumpin’ Titties: Fighting.

Bullet: A one-year sentence.

Bundle: A small package containing tobacco or drugs.

Bungee-Jumping: Hanging one’s self

Bunkie: Roommate. A person you share a bunkbed with.

Burned: When an inmate has caused another to see his penis either by accident or on purpose, you are said to have been burned.

Butt Naked Cell: A cell in which the prisoner is put on “property restriction”, that is, deprived of all belongings including clothing and bedding. Usually in solitary confinement.

Cadillac: Coffee with cream and sugar; Also refers to an inmate’s bunk.

Cadillac Job: A plumb work assignment.

Cage: One’s cell.

Calling the Cops Making enough noise activities, or a scene that attracts the attention of prison staff.

Camp: Another name for certain minimum-security prisons, since prisons are often referred to as work camps. There are various types of camps: Sweet (high on rehabilitative opportunities), Psych Camp (a mental health facility). Fucked-up Camp: A prison with a high level of violence and gang activity. Such prisons generally offer very few educational, job training, or recreational programs. The term can also refer to any prison that the speaker dislikes. Sweet Camp: A prison with a low level of violence and gang activity, offering greater access to educational, job training, and recreational programs. The term can also refer to any prison that the speaker likes. In this story, Hayes CI was always considered a sweet camp even after it became a psych camp. SSRC East Unit was super-sweet.

Car: A prison clique marked by extreme and blind loyalty. The group that one associates with while in prison (determined by gang affiliation or some other commonality like age, race, sexual identity, etc.)

Case: A disciplinary report written on an inmate for a rule infraction, derived from court case.

Catch cold: To get killed.

Catch a Pair: A term used by correctional officers to instruct a group of inmates to stand in pairs for count or control purposes.

Catch a Ride: To get high with a friend’s drugs.

Catching the Train: When an inmate is leaving.

Cellie: Cellmate. Roommate.

Cell Warrior: An inmate who acts tough when locked in his cell, but is a coward face-to-face.

Chalk: Prison moonshine. AlsoHooch, pruno.

Chaps: Term used by the Surenos prison gang to refer to their rivals, the Nortenos, and Pisas

Chatted Out: Someone who has gone crazy.

Checked: When one person had scolded another person and the person that has been scolded fails, or is afraid to make a rebuttal, that person is said to have been checked. If one person continually allows the other to scold him/her without making a rebuttal that person is said to be “in check.”

Checking In: Requesting protective custody, which also occurs in solitary confinement.

Chingasos: Hispanic gang term for Fighting. Spanish for “Hard hits.”

Chiva: Prison or gang term for Heroin.

Chomo: An acronym for “Child Molester. Most people assume that a person convicted of a sex offense is automatically a chomo, which is wrong. There’s a difference between a seventeen year-old kid who had sex with his sixteen year old girlfriend and a person who’s committed serial rape.

Chow: A meal.

CHRONIC: Chronic Discipline Unit. Where inmates with many disciplinary infractions live.

Chronic Sweep: An event during which a team of guards wander the prison and pick up the prisoners with the worst discipline records to house them in the Chronic Discipline Unit.

Classification Team: Staffer responsible for determining an inmate’s risk level, based on a number of factors, such as nature and severity of crime, length of sentence, medical and mental health needs, history of violence, education and work history. In some facilities, this group is also responsible for inmate work assignments.

Click up: Gang term referring to getting along well with a homeboy, not looking for trouble.

C/O: A correctional officer. A guard.

Cowboy: A new correctional officer.

Crank: Crank is one of the many street words for methamphetamine. “Cranking up,” however, is a term sometimes used in prison to refer to the administration of a substance by hypodermic needle. The hypodermic needle itself is sometimes called a “spike.”

Crossed Out: When a person is taken from a good area, job, etc. for something they claim not to have done, or for something that they don’t feel they should have been blamed for, they say they were “crossed out.”

Croaker: A doctor or physician, someone who diagnoses illness.

CTQ: Confined to Quarters. A disciplinary sanction whereby the inmate is restricted to her cell except for meals. Not only does she lose recreation privileges, she can’t go to her prison work assignment.

Custody Rating Scale: Risk scale used by Bureau of Prisons for purposes of intake assessment and classification to custody and security level. The Custody Rating Scale consists of a variety of empirically-derived risk factors, subdivided into three categories, institutional adjustment, public safety, and escape risk.

Daddies: Incarcerated sexual predators who prey on weaker inmates, called “punks.”

Dancing on the blacktop: Getting stabbed.

DAP – A greeting or way of congratulating another, by pounding the bottom of one person’s fist to the top of the others.

Diaper Sniffer: Person accused of molesting a child.

Diddler: Another term for child molester or pedophile.

Diesel Therapy: a lengthy bus trip, sometimes used as punishment or a way to reduce a population count temporarily for an event like an inspection.

Ding Wing: Mental health ward

Dime: 10-year sentence

Dinner and a Show: When inmates eat in the chow hall and watch other inmates fight and get pepper-sprayed by the guards.

Dog: A very good friend, as in “a man’s best friend is his dog.”

Dobie – A biscuit or roll, derived from the word adobe (brick).

Dog: What an inmate often calls his friends, the closest friend is often referred to as a road dog.

Doing the Dutch: Committing suicide.

The Door: The end of your prison sentence when you get to leave. As in, “I am two years form the door.”

Dotted Up: Tattooed.

Down: A term in prison. E.g.: “How many times have you been down?”

Drama: Can be mere verbal conflict but sometimes means a fight or an assault.

Drop a Slip: Snitch on someone by reporting them in writing and placing the paper in the same box as other requests for assistance, like legal calls.

Dropped: When an officer forcibly wrestles an inmate to the ground to be restrained. 

Dry Snitching: Ratting out another inmate by talking loudly about his bad behavior in front of guards. Giving information without naming names.

Duck: A correctional officer who’s seen as gullible, easily manipulated or bribed to smuggle in contraband. Also refers to a correctional official who reveals personal information about other prison staff to inmates.

Dump Truck: Overweight, lazy inmate.

Dungeon: Punitive segregation, or solitary confinement, where an inmate is placed to serve a sentence for no more than 15 days as the result of being convicted of a disciplinary offense.

The Eagle Has Landed: Heroin or contraband that has been successfully smuggled into prison.

Education: The school. The place in the facility where inmates can take GED or college classes, go to the library, use a typewriter, make photocopies, or check out books.

Erasers: Chunks of processed chicken.

Eyeball: When someone is staring at your or your things they are said to be eyeballing you.

Fence: Prison slang that refers to someone who buys and sells stolen goods

Flip-Flopping: Engaging in homosexual acts with other prisoners

Fair One: A fair fight, one with no weapons involved.

Fatty Girl Cake: A prison dessert made by smashing up all cake-like items from the commissary (brownies, cakes, cookies, muffins) and putting them in a bowl together and binding them with non-dairy creamer and topping it with marshmallow Fluff and pieces of candy.

Fiend: A person who’s addicted to something: drugs, sex, food.

Fish: In men’s facilities, this is the term used for new prisoners. A fish is new to prison politics the reality of how facilities run.

Fishing Line – Made from torn sheets or string, having a weighted object tied to one end and used to throw down the run to inmates in other cells to pass items.

Fishing Pole – A device made from rolled up newspaper or other paper, with a paper clip in one end, used for retrieving items from the runs in front of their cells.

Flick: A photograph, or picture torn from a magazine.  rel.: “Throwing flicks” – taking pictures.

Fresh Meat: A batch of new Inmates.

Frequent Flier: A recidivist.

Funky – An inmate who does not shower. This will get you disciplined or beaten by other inmates until you shower.

Gaming: Prison slang for trying to manipulate the system in one’s favor. For example, enlisting the help of prisoners’ rights groups in prison, over-reporting or falsely-reporting institutional assaults and victimizations, etc.

Gay for the Stay: Selective and temporary sexual orientation that causes both men and women to become involved with people of the same sex for the time they’re incarcerated and nothing longer.

Gen Pop: General Population. Inmates who are not housed in a special programming housing unit or medical/mental health unit.

Getting Buzzed: Getting tattooed.

Get Hit: To catch a longer sentence, either by being denied parole (which doesn’t lengthen the sentence, but rather prevents shortening it) or being arrested on new charges while you’re incarcerated.

Ghost-Train: Prison slang referring to the act of repeatedly transferring a “problem-inmate” from facility-to-facility or unit-to-unit as a security precaution. i.e.: he’s constantly getting put on the “ghost-train.”

Going Psych: When a prisoner exhibits symptoms of severe mental illness such that he needs to be transferred to a psych wing or even a separate facility. Sometimes inmates do this on purpose.

Goon Squad: Any group of prison guards that are working together to effect prison discipline, either by investigating a matter, taking an inmate into custody or transporting him or her somewhere else.

Got a Body: To have killed another person. E.g., “She’s got, like, bodies on her.” Usually a brag or exaggeration. Rarely used for people who are actually facing murder charges.

Grandma’s: Gang headquarters.

Grapes: 411, information, gossip.

Green Light: The go-ahead to kill a person or gang affiliate on sight.

Grey Market: The inmate prison system for buying and selling merchandise and contraband.

Gump: A gump is what prisoners call a gay man on the inside.

Gunning: Masturbating in front of someone. In prison it specifically means in front of a (presumably female) correctional officer. On the outside it could be in front of your girlfriend or anyone.

Hacks: Prison guards.

Half a Yard: Prison slang for “fifty dollars.”

Has the Keys: The person who controls or calls the shots for a group or gang.

High Class: Hepatitis C.

Hoe Check: Group beating given to prisoner to see if he’ll stand up for himself.

Hole, The: Solitary confinement.

Hooch: Hooch is homemade, fermented alcoholic beverage made of sugar, some fruit or juice, and some yeast. It’s fermented in a bag or airtight bowl and needs to be “burped” to relieve the pressure in the container.

Hooking Up: Prison term for developing a protective, sexual relationship with another inmate, providing some resistance to the threat of being victimized by continuing rape with more inmates. These may appear as consenting homosexual relationships to staff, but the “inmate code” often prevents prisoners from telling the truth, or “crying wolf” about their “protectors.”

Hoop: To hide contraband in one’s body cavity.

Hot Medders: People who take over-the-counter medication.

Hot One: A murder charge.

Hot Water: An officer is walking the tier; a warning to cease inappropriate behavior

House: Your cell.

Hustle: An inmate’s way of making money in prison, whether by selling drugs, or slipping things from his job assignment back to the dorm for sale (like kitchen workers bringing back choice food items).

Inmate.com: The name prison inmates have given to the rumor mill and conspiracy theories that swirl around every prison in America.

In the Cut: Being in the cut means you are in a hidden area, away from a surveillance camera’s prying eyes.

Iron Pile: weightlifting equipment (essentially non-existent in many facilities).

The “Jacket” (and the “Coat”): Slang term referring to an offender who receives an indeterminate sentence. Also known as the “coat.”

Jack Book: Any magazine with pictures of women.

J-CAT: Someone with mental issues. A crazy or foolish person.

Jail. A verb meaning to do time correctly and competently. E.g., “Dude, learn how to jail.”

Jaunt: Code for anything you want it to be. The meaning of the word is derived from context This is a bastardized way of saying joint and can refer to anything such as a shank, razor, or other type of weapon. It can also refer to a book of stamps, the commissary, drugs, a book or magazine, workout gloves, food from the chow hall, and so on. It’s a way to ask for something from another prisoner in front of the cops without letting on what you’re talking about.

Jewelry: Slang term for an ankle bracelet or some other electronic monitoring device worn by an offender leaving prison on probation or parole. In this context, his jeweler is a sort of “get-out-jail” token.

Jit or Jitterbug: A loud, young punk who causes trouble in the form of gossip or rabblerousing.

Jody: A man sleeping with a prisoner’s wife/girlfriend on the outside.

Jointman: Prison slang for an inmate in prison who behaves like a guard

Jug-up: Prison slang for “meal-time.”

June Bug: A prisoner considered to be a slave to others.

Keister: To smuggle contraband inside one’s anal cavity.

Kickstand: A life sentence. Reference to the “L” of Life Sentence, comparing it to a bicycle’s kickstand.

Killing Your Number: Prison slang for serving one’s time or getting out on parole or probation.

Kite: The word “kite” can mean one of three very different things. As used here it means an anonymous note turned in by an inmate which usually either snitches on criminal activity by another inmate (sometimes truthfully, sometimes falsely) or complains about a prison staff member. In the latter case the affected staff member will often refer to it as “fan mail.”

Kitty Kitty: Term used by male inmates for a female correctional officer.

Kung Fu Joes: Skimpy, state-issued prison shoes.

Lame Duck: A vulnerable inmate standing alone in the prison yard, easy to prey upon.

La Raza: La Raza is the term for unaffiliated Mexican inmates in facilities that have serious gang activity.

Leg-Rider: Slang for a person who sucks up to the police, as in, “humping the officer’s leg” in an attempt to get favors.

Lick: Robbery. As in, “I did a lick” (committed a robbery).

Lifeboat: A pardon or commutation of sentence.

Life Jolt: A life sentence.

Limbo Room: Prison slang for an area of the prison that is reserved for or encouraging of corporal punishment

LOC: Loss of commissary as a disciplinary sanction.

LOM: Loss of personal mail as a disciplinary sanction.

LOR: Loss of recreation as a disciplinary sanction.

LOV: Loss of visits as a disciplinary sanction.

Lockdown: When some kind of disturbance in prison causes guards to lock all inmates in their cells, indefinitely, until calm is restored. Often involves a “shakedown.”

Lock-in-a-Sock: A weapon created from putting a combination lock inside a sock and swinging it. Also called a Slock.

Loss of Life: When an inmate has been punished with multiple sanctions for a disciplinary infraction and has lost her commissary privileges, recreation, phone privileges and her visits, she is on “loss of life.”

Lugger: Prison slang referring to an inmate who smuggles in and possesses contraband and illicit substances.

L-WOP: Life without the possibility of parole (LWOP).

Making Tortillas: Engaging in homosexual acts with other prisoners

Maligner: Verb, meaning to walk slowly. A misuse of the word meaning “To feign illness.”

Mando: Mandatory.

Max Out: Maxing out refers to the practice of releasing or transferring inmates from jail (or from one facility to another) due to overcrowding problems and capacity issues.

Meat Wagon: A hospital ambulance.

Midnight Express: Prison slang for an old-fashioned escape attempt.

Minute: A long time. E.g. “You’ve been here a minute. What’s it been, five years?”

Mofongo: In prison, it’s a meal that’s a mixture of chips, ramen (“soups”), instant rice, mackerel, pre-wrapped “sausages” and seasoning (Adobo or Sazón).

Molly WHopped: To kick someone’s ass in a fight or to get your ass kicked in a fight.

Monkey Mouth: A prisoner who goes on and on about nothing.

The Monster: HIV. Also known as “The Virus.”

Netted Up: Someone who undergoes a mental breakdown in prison.

New Booties: Inmates with first-time conviction.

New Jacks: New, inexperienced prison guards.

Nickle: 5-year sentence.

Ninja Turtles: Guards dressed in riot gear.

O.G.: An “original gangster;” a label of respect given to older inmates who has been in the prison system a long time.

On the Count: 1. A warning to inmates to get where they need to be for an official head count. 2. Representing your group of friends.

On the Door: Getting ready to leave one’s cell. “On the door for chow,” means get ready to leave your cell to go to a meal.

On the Line: Has many meanings, but usually means something is for sale.

On the Road: Slang for being finally out of prison.

On Paper: Under community supervision, either parole or probation.

Papa: Spanish for ‘potato.’ It’s a prison snack made from combining crushed potato chips, squeeze cheese and hot water to make a paste that is then spread out like a soft shell.

Papers: Drugs. They call it papers because they use a ripped-off piece of paper to package the drugs.

Pay to Stay: An extortion scheme whereby an inmate is threatened by others with recurring violence unless payments are made in the form of commissary or items stolen from prison workplaces like the kitchen, the laundry, the library or the medical unit.

PC: Protective Custody; a category of solitary confinement where the inmate needs protection from other inmates.

Permanent Pocket: Refers to a person’s anus. Also, Prison Pocket.

Playing on Ass: Gambling without money.

Porch: Small area outside a person’s cell door.

Prison Pocket: A person’s anus.

Prison Safe: The safest place to keep drugs, shanks, dice, etc. during cell inspections and transfers.

Prison Wolf: A heterosexual prisoner who engages in sex with men while incarcerated.

Programmer: An inmate who spends most of his time attending classes and improving himself: the nerds of prison.

Pruno: A homemade alcohol made from fruit, bread and anything with sugar, i.e. jelly, cookie cream, tootsie rolls, etc. and left to rot under a bunk for three days.

Punk: Derogatory for a transgender/homosexual or a weak individual.

Put on Camera: Having one’s behavior recorded for disciplinary reasons or while one is being escorted to solitary confinement.

Put Down On: Being systematically extorted and threatened with bodily harm by another inmate or inmates. See “Pay to Stay”. This can also happen to inmates with large unpaid bills or gambling debts.

Ratchette: A nurse.

Rat Jacket or Rat: Someone wearing a rat jacket is known as an informant.

Real Talk: Synonym for “seriously” or “for real” — used to let others know that you are talking honestly and sincerely and that what you are expressing is not a joke. Also used to affirm what others are saying is true.

REC: Recreation; the hour a day allowed outside one’s cell.

Ride Leg: To suck up to staff to get favors.

Ride with: Perform favors for a fellow convict, including sexual, in exchange for protection or commissary goods.

Righteous Weapons: Slang term for dangerous inmates.

Road Dogs: Inmates who do not declare any gang-affiliations but who buddy-up inside prison for protection. Can also mean a pair of beat up old tennis shows that have been circulating through the prison for years. AS well as, Prisoners who walk the track together during “rec”; also means close friends.

Robocop: Guard who writes up every infraction, no matter how small.

Roll Call: 1. A mandatory meeting for your group or gang. 2. The official start of a new shift for staff.

Roll Up Your Window: A request to stop eavesdropping on another inmate’s conversation, especially do not comment on the conversation uninvited.

Self-report: A recently-admitted inmate who is allowed to show up at reception on his or her own.

Send In/Send Out: Ways of passing money. When you buy drugs or other items in prison, you can either pay with books or store or do a send-in, send-out or street-to-street transaction. A send-in is when you get people who are free to put money in the commissary account of the prisoner you owe. A send-out is when you transfer money from your account to the prisoner’s contacts out in the world. A street-to-street is when you get someone to send money to other people on the outside.

Set-tripping: To switch from one gang to another.

Shank: Prison slang for “knife.” The actual act of knifing someone is known as a “shiving.”

Shakedown: When prison guards tear apart inmates’ cells looking for contraband.

Shiv: Homemade prison knife.

Shot Caller: A shot caller is an inmate boss. Sometimes the leader of a gang or racial car.

Shower Buddies: Laminated pornographic photos used in the shower to masturbate.

Shower Shark: Refers to another inmate known to check out other inmates in the shower.

Six Five: Warning that a guard is approaching. Also Five-O.

Skid Bid: A short sentence where the prisoner is in and out so quickly that she leaves skid marks.

Skippies / Slippers: Skimpy, state-issued shoes for inmates. Essentially white Keds without laces.

Skittles: Over the counter medications. Sometimes psychiatric medication.

Sleep on Steel: Being deprived of sheets and blankets, usually because of suicide risk, but sometimes out of abuse.

Slinging rock: Selling crack cocaine.

Slock: Lock-in-a-sock.

Slop: Prison food in the form of a loose casserole, usually tomato-based. Very insulting to prison kitchen supervisors.

Slug: Someone who rarely comes out of her cell.

Snout: Slang for tobacco inside prison.

Soup: Ramen noodles purchased from the prison commissary.

Spice: The main drug available to inmates in prisons today. Also very prevalent on the street. In TV news reports you will often hear it referred to as “synthetic marijuana” but the only similarity to reefer is that it is smokable. What it really consists of is any chemical reputed to have psychoactive properties — including, but not limited to, rat poison, cleaning products or herbicides — sprayed onto the closest dead weeds in your back yard, then shipped into prisons by the ton all over the U.S.

Spider Monkey: Someone doing hard time.

Stainless Steel Ride: Lethal injection.

Stinger: A rigged heating element created out of metal, designed to get water to boil.

Store: Commissary. Inmates describe going “shopping” – meaning filling out the form for the commissary. Sometimes refers to what commissary an inmate has on hand to give out or sell.

Strapped: When someone is carrying a weapon.

Stress Box: Pay phone.

Sucker Ducker: Someone who stays away from people who cause trouble.

Sweet Kid: Prison slang referring to an inmate who allies with an older, more experienced inmate, possibly for protection or knowledge.

Take Flight: To attack a person using fists.

Taking a Nap/Vacation: Short jail sentence, usually for gang members.

Tecato: Term for Heroin addict

Telephone Receiver Inverted: Not slang exactly, but a sign to be obeyed. It the telephone has been hung up with the receiver upside-down, and if you are not the badass who put it that way, use it at your extreme peril.

Ticket: Disciplinary report.

Ticket Master: A guard who is known to write many tickets or disciplinary reports.

Time to Feed the Warden: Saying that means one has to go to the bathroom.

Tits-up: Prison slang for an inmate who has died.

Tree-Jumper: Prison slang for rapist

Toochie: Synthetic marijuana. Called K2 or “Spice.” Toochie has become very big in prison because it can’t be detected in urine samples.

Tuck: To place contraband in one’s vaginal or anal cavities to smuggle it inside a facility.

Turtle Suit: A Ferguson gown. A dark-colored, quilted, and padded gown with a hexagonal pattern, held together by Velcro. It’s like wrapping a person in a pot holder. Used for suicide prevention.

UA: Urinalysis or just “a urine.” A drug test.

Vampire: People who draw blood in a fight.

Veterano: Veteran gang member.

VIC: This is shorthand for victim. Prison is very predatory. People inside can behave in predatory ways.

Viking: Someone who is extremely lazy and unwilling to keep their living space or themselves clean.

Violated: Being cited by one’s parole or probation officer for a parole or probation violation. Very often results in being sent back to prison.

Wolfpacks: Recent inmates out on release on probation or parole that have been recruited by prison gang members sometime during their incarceration. Once released, they carry out the orders from their imprisoned commanders, who usually instruct them on generating revenue or carrying out contract killings. They are trained in prison by higher-ranking gang members, in vocabulary, symbols, hand-signals, proper dress, as well as how to profit from criminal enterprise.

Yard: The yard, also known as the pound, is shorthand for a fenced in area for outdoor recreation.

NEVER Use: Derogatory racial terms, Bitch, or Pussy. Those word WILL get you beaten.