Oops, I'm sorry. That one is true. Clichés often achieve their status by being undeniably true. OK, not all of the guards. Maybe there are 2 or 3 percent who aren't.

The question I have never been able to answer to my satisfaction is whether working in prison turns people into officious petty dictators, or even Ivans the Terrible, or whether people with those traits are the ones attracted to prison work in the first place. Most of the guards we see here are ex- (or failed) military who arrive with their bad haircuts and their affected, tortured syntax and love of acronyms to double-dip on their government pensions and strut around like aspiring Pattons, shouting orders in what is known as "command voice." I'd be willing to wager that, given the choice between tossing a few back at the corner pub with either a group of convicts or a group of prison guards, most of you who looked into it would opt for the convicts.

6. EVERYTHING SOMEONE NEEDS TO SURVIVE IN PRISON IS SUPPLIED BY THE PRISON.

Well, if bare survival is the goal, that might possibly be true. But over the course of a 10-year bit (about average for a small- to mid-level dope dealer) anyone who hoped to treat himself to a few luxury items-like a pair of sneakers and a sweatshirt, or an occasional toothsome snack, or vitamins to fight off the ravages of beriberi and scurvy to which he would surely succumb should he stick to chow-hall fare, or a radio so he could watch TV (the televisions here don't have speakers; the audio portion is broadcast over an FM frequency), or shampoo, or dental floss, or coffee, or a phone call home, or stamps to mail a letter, or even aspirin or cold pills, which are mainly available through the prison commissary-then that person would have a problem. It's a problem that will soon be getting worse, because the Bureau of Prisons has recently announced its intent to begin charging convicts a nominal fee for sick-call visits. if a $4 fee for someone who makes $5 a month can truly be called nominal. (We all have jobs in prison, but it's like the old Soviet system under communism: We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.)

For the fortunate portion of the prison population for whom crime did, in fact, pay, the $200-400 a month required in order to do time in a manner that approaches comfort does not represent a serious burden. In large part, however, the old adage is true, at least to the extent that the sort of person who is more accustomed to scores than to paychecks is not the sort of person to put a little something away for a rainy day. Which leads us to.

7. PRISON HAS A REHABILITATIVE EFFECT.

By removing us from the pressures and the temptations of the money economy, prison supposedly affords convicts the opportunity and inclination to reflect on our evil ways and do penance. Hence the name "penitentiary." This was the idea that incited Quakers to invent prisons in the first place (sort of), and to establish what was called the "Pennsylvania System."

Given that most convicts hit the door under pressure to earn, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that, at any given time, about 80 percent of the prison population is on a 24/7 hustle. Some hustles are even tacitly encouraged. Sanitation, for instance, is a high-priority item with all prison administrators. New arrivals are commonly told that their areas have to be cleaned every day, regardless of how that is accomplished. In a higher-security joint, enterprising types take this as authorization to seize all the mops, buckets and other cleaning supplies and establish a monopoly on cleaning that hardly anyone is inclined to break. After all, the crowd who needs to hustle and the crowd who needs, for reasons largely associated with perceived status, to have their cells professionally cleaned, are symbiotic groups, and two bucks a week is a cheap way to feel like a Mafia don. Laundry service is similarly tolerated by staff, who have come to accept that maximum usage of the limited laundry facilities in woefully overcrowded prisons is best achieved by people who are motivated by profit.

Along these lines, a convict who is willing to pay can hire another convict to perform his assigned job. The cost of this is, naturally, many times what the prison pays. No one would really work for that. All of this contributes to what is known as "the orderly running of the institution," and there isn't anyone on either side of the bars who would argue that turning a blind eye to certain indiscretions is anything but sound management policy. Most hustles, however, are not so benignly regarded. Stealing, for instance, is frowned upon by everyone, though the sanctions imposed by the convict population are so much worse than anything the administration is allowed to employ that this is not as much of a problem as you might expect. Such is not the case with gambling, which is ubiquitous. Many a bookmaker has arrived in prison already feeling unfairly persecuted in light of the state's lottery, the church's bingo games, the volunteer fire department's Monte Carlo night and the NCAA Tournament pool that was hanging on the wall of the police station where he was taken after he was arrested. He then finds himself in prison, immediately solicited to place bets or buy squares in pools for football games, basketball games, NASCAR races and the Daily Number. This is in addition to the card games, crap games, pool games and big-time action on the intramural softball, basketball and soccer leagues.

The first advice a newly arrived convict usually receives is to mind his own business, always pay his bills on time, and never get involved with gambling, dope or punks. The first piece of advice he usually ignores is the part about gambling. In the higher-security institutions, more convicts PC (check into protective custody) over gambling debts than for any other reason.

Speaking of dope, there is plenty in prison, which begs the question: If they can't keep drugs out of a penitentiary with 30-foot walls, eight gun towers and a full-time security staff of 500, how do they expect to keep them from crossing the Mexican border' But that is a different matter.

In most prisons, one can obtain the full array of intoxicants available on the street corner. In maximum-security joints, tastes run toward heroin, exorbitantly priced reefer (about $40/gram), and jailhouse wine made from either orange or tomato juice or, for the connoisseur, a very fine grape juice vintage aged 21 days in a plastic trash bag that most convicts say tastes almost as good as anything that can be had in a bottle with a twist-off cap. One security level lower, at a medium, you'll find less heroin and wine but more reefer. A minimum-security facility is about the same. Coke and hallucinogens are rare everywhere: There's no sense getting too wound up with nowhere to go. At a camp, where it is easiest to get things from the street, there is, paradoxically, practically nothing to be had except for some occasional vodka, the drink of choice because of its mild smell. Convicts get transferred to camps, after all, for behaving themselves.

Besides the dope biz, other hustles you will be sure to find everywhere include extortion, prostitution, selling chow-hall food (your own and otherwise), making and selling greeting cards and other hobby-craft items (including fifis), selling loosies (single cigarettes), operating a 2-for-1 store with commissary items (take 1 now, pay for 2 later), doing legal work, and then some.

In here it is still all about the Benjamins, and we don't have much time for rehabilitating or reflecting.

8. POLITICIANS ARE SENDING A MESSAGE TO POTENTIAL CRIMINALS WITH HARSH SENTENCING LAWS.

It is a constant refrain among the John Ashcrofts and Donald Rumsfelds of the world that this or that person, or group of people, needs to be sent a message, usually in the form of some draconian punishment or other barely civilized act. Every week on the evening news you are likely to see some politician advocating the bastinado or drawing and quartering to send a message to jaywalkers or mopes.

Hello out there. No one in here is listening. Do you really think that with the time and effort one must devote to a career in crime, not to mention staying out half the night carousing and sleeping till mid-afternoon, that any of us actually has time to watch the news or read the paper, let alone the Congressional Record or the Federal Register? To us, these messages are nothing but spam, junk mail to be trashed unopened, a flashing light on the answering machine that we will ignore. As a result, few of us will ever learn the penalty for anything until we get caught, at which point the message is useless-unless, of course, the message really is a wink and a nod in the direction of you, the voter, to let you know that the government is going to continue to do its best to use its power and resources to punish the people who do things that you don't want them to do; so please continue to vote for me and, by all means, don't think that this pat on the back is only a diversion to hide a grab for your wallet. But that is too cynical for even a criminal like me to believe.

Also implicit in the power of these messages is a misunderstanding of exactly what goes on in here. A criminal-defense lawyer who had defended hundreds of clients once told me that no one who goes to prison is ever the same again. I didn't believe him, of course. Convicts never believe anything anybody tells them. We are archetypal show-me guys. It turns out that he was right, and I'm not talking about an increased tendency to dress in dark colors, wear sunglasses at inappropriate times, or believe that Vegas and Sinatra and Wayne Newton are really, really cool. Prison leaves an indelible mark on the soul. The results, however, are not what I believe the people who advocate it most are hoping for.

So what are all these millions of people doing in prison besides lounging around on your dime' I've already told you that we're not rehabilitating, whatever that means. Everybody's main activity, even more than hustling, is scheming.

It makes perfect sense if you think about it. Take a large group of people who are largely motivated by money and remove them from the economy during their prime earning years. The longer you do this, the more it increases their anxiety. Then, stigmatize them with a label that makes the possibility of a secure future via traditional means unlikely. Finally, when you set them free, place them under the thumb of a supervision system designed to hassle them. What do you expect to happen? This is so obvious to me that I can't see how anyone could believe that we are doing anything else in here but hatching schemes.

The message we get by the time we're paying attention is: You're really screwed, so you'd better figure out what you're going to do about it.

Soon a lot more people will be getting that message. The feds are so happy about how the drug thing is working out that they are in the process of upping the ante for everyone. Just this year they doubled, and in some cases quadrupled, the sentencing guidelines for a bunch of white-collar offenses.

I'll leave the light on for you.