Pick a Team and Stay on the Bench

Prison is a game. A stressful survival game with rules that muse be followed. First rule is, pick a team, usually sorted by skin tone or ethnicity. Team choice is important. Some people try not choosing a team and go it alone. Loners are weak in numbers (one) and stand out. You never want to stand out. Pick a team and stay on the bench. Eat with your team, work out, walk, fraternize, barter and trade only with teammates.  If you want to have a stress-less prison stay, don’t buck the system. People who follow the rules but stay on their bunk are left alone.  
A Latino man was beat up yesterday by four guys and sent out by life flight. He wouldn’t pick a team, chose to play-poker, everybody knew they could take advantage of him because he had no backup. Now he has two battles, the need for heath care in prison and his own race against him.
Prison yards are volatile. Prison staff know it and try to keep the team “race” numbers as equal as possible. If you portray yourself as weak or sick you are looked at as a person using up space that a stronger team player could be in. Everything you say and do is being watched and judged. Almost every day someone leaves this yard either voluntarily “checking in” or forcefully. Despite your personal beliefs, self preservation requires that you follow the rules every second. This is a stress you live every second of your time here.