(And maybe I shouldn't pick on those gangbangers because the modern American gang phenomenon, while not completely caused by The War on Drugs, is at least strongly exacerbated by it. But here goes anyway, because justice this pure seems to be an all too rare commodity these days.)
Here's a description of doing time that I'd wager there is not an ex-con in the country who would disagree with. We're civilized enough as a country that all of our prisons are adminsistered on the basis of an established, written set of policies. And then there are "The Rules". And if there's any overlap between the two, I never found it.
Doing your own time in prison is tough. Even in the best of circumstances, the bodies are in dangerously close quarters, and everybody has far too much spare time. Almost all compensate by forming alliances (and, really, almost always only the most obvious and well known ones.) Some few, e.g. the most truly dangerous, the most truly artistic, the most truly repentant/religious, are sometimes able to succeed at charting their own course. (Or, if you happen to be lucky enough to be in one of the numerous joints where there is no one even remotely dangerous present, a circumstance made increasingly common by the misguided nature of our Drug War, then a whole other set of rules apply.)
I wasn't a "jailhouse lawyer" because I crowed that I was one, or because a little knowledge in an environment where nearly no one else has any can be a ticket to an extra level of security and prosperity (I mean, by definition, you can't find anyone in prison who is not someone with a legal problem that they would like to have worked on. And that's before we even get to all of the rest of the crap that everyone else runs into from time to time.) In my eight years down, I was only aware of two others of the many thousands of federal prison inmates who circulated through my field of consciousness who actually possessed a valid Juris Doctorate Degree from a fully accredited major U.S. Law School.
So I was a jailhouse lawyer becuase, in the eyes of my fellow inmates, I was universally considered to be one (or at least after I got past the one guy who tried to get me killed by claiming that he was one, and I was the liar, because he was making a six figure income and was afraid of taking a pay cut.) And no one fucks with the jailhouse lawyers. And that goes even for the "for profit" ones, and not just the few "not for profit" ones like me. I mean, that's "The Rules". Personally, I was non-profit by inclination, but would have been out of necessity anyway. Policy is that no one can do legal work for money. The Rules are that, yeah, you can, if you only target other inmates, and never the system. And if, god forbid, you happen to be one of the few, like me, dumb enough to actually try to go head to head against your jailors, you can even do that (but then the under the table "Rules" kick in). But then let's say that you want to stave off some of the rest of the boredom by just trying to help out other guys, even for free, then you have another huge set of extra hoops that you have to jump through just to safely do that. All in all a tightrope I hope to never have to walk again.
Also, jailhouse lawyers get scooped up and moved more than most others. An occupational hazard, unless, like me, you think that one prison is pretty much the same as another. And, besides, I was never completely among strangers. I mean, I met so many, and helped so many, where could they put me?
So now we meet Fred. Or, really, run into him again 4 or 5 years later. Fred was an example of "those who know don't talk, and those who talk, don't know". Or at least he would have been if I had not already spent a couple of years with him at FCI Texarkana a few years earlier. But now Fred came up to me when I rolled into Black Canyon/Phoenix, said howdy, and we renewed acquaintances. A good dude. The real thing, but a rarity for more than only that. Mostly no one makes it to the inside solvent because trying to avoid the coming cataclysm unleashed by merely being charged is ungodly expensive, and/or because, for most guys soon to go down, the ones they once thought they were close to become circling sharks, seeking to consume remaining assets at the first sign of blood in the water.
So I was not even vaguely surprised to confirm that Fred was that rare guy who was still able to shed inside "work", spend as much time on the iron pile as he wanted to, buy max commissary every cycle, and had every luxury (relatively speaking, of course) stocked up in his locker.
Which is ultimately actually where the problen came from. So, I knew that Fred was finally short, like weeks short on the tail end of six years down short when I glanced over from my top bunk one night and noticed him parceling out his locker wealth to this mini mob of shit for brains kids, or wannabe real guys, or whatever. And nothing in hell could have convinced me that this was as innocent and voluntary as it looked, but I still knew that a guy like Fred, even severly outnumbered that way, and even so close to freedom that he could taste it, would have been anything but that calm and serene in any set of circumstances that he was not already in control of. So I just quietly chuckled inside the next evening after chow when I saw each of those little cocksuckers quietly drop by Freds bunk and return every last item they had openly gloated over the last evening. And the brief chat I had with Fred surprsed me not in the slightest (nor, really, that he told me things that only he, the asshole kids, and literally every top player in the place knew).
Fred had both the power of money, and brains. And like all of the good ones, he knew who he knew, even if no one else did. And, in the tried and true universal formula for real success, he spread the wealth around. And the kids, the kids, I guarantee you that they came at least close to shitting their pants when every top gangster of every flavor in the whole joint casually walked past each of them during the course of the day and said "make Fred happy,or die". And the Rule, and everyone very quickly learns this Rule, says that if even one of that type guy says that thing to you you fold, you kill him, or you die. And if they all do, I mean, hey, who doesn't know how to count votes at least that well.
Nor, I suppose, was anyone truly surprisrd when Fred woke from a deep sleep the next night screaming after having been whacked in the ass by a dust broom swung by some prick who wasn't brave enough to make it a shank, and who didn't want to take a chance on what Fred might do out in population the next three weeks. So, as per The Rules, or the policy, Fred ended up tucked away in a private cell in detention until he caught his flight back home to L.A. as scheduled.
And the day after Fred got hauled out no one knew him, because, ultimately, thinking about what was or what might be serves no real purpose, and focusing on what is is the only thing that can help get you out the door.