If you are faced with your first prison sentence, you are bound to be apprehensive about your chances of surviving in prison. It is natural that you should be fearful; everyone knows that prison is a hard, unpleasant and dangerous place. Most prison inmates manage to live through the experience somehow. If you want to survive prison with your body, mind and spirit intact, you need to learn all you can about life inside and how to conduct yourself behind prison bars.

Prison has its own set of complex rules and codes of conduct. Just holding eye contact for a second too long or glancing round when you hear a cry can earn you a serious beating. Once you have inadvertently breached one of prison's unwritten rules, you will be viewed with suspicion by the other inmates and your chances of becoming the victim of further violence will be greatly increased. It is essential that you learn as much as you can about these prison codes and rules before you are locked away from society.

The first rule for surviving in prison is to keep yourself to yourself. Don't openly shun friendly advances from fellow inmates; you need friends on the inside, just don't become too friendly too soon even with your cellmates.

Don't give away too much about yourself, your family, your life on the outside and the reason you found yourself on the wrong side of the bars. Don't lie, just keep the information you give to a minimum; you would be surprised how small things can be turned into weapons to be used against you and reduce the odds for you surviving in prison.

Be particularly careful not to confide any problems to another inmate. A problem is a weak spot and it is dangerous to show any weakness in prison because it is full of people eager to exploit any vulnerability they spot.

For instance, it is natural for you to worry about how your wife is surviving while you are in prison, but you should keep that worry to yourself. If you open up about your concerns, you will be a target for taunts about infidelity. Prison is a boring place; some inmates would get hours of amusement from teasing you with their ideas of how your wife might be enjoying your absence. They would probably not want to stop even after you broke down.