-
I had this cellmate who's an axe-
-
he killed a man with an axe handle
on an airforce base.
-
Good dude. I know, you're saying
"what do you mean, 'good dude?'"
-
Good dude. I trusted him.
-
Hi, I'm Larry Lawton,
America's biggest jewel thief.
-
Join me as I walk you
through my past robberies,
-
how I planned them, executed them
-
and ultimately got caught.
-
I'm gonna show you how
we did things in prison.
-
Like: making a tattoo gun, making wine,
-
making white lightening. It's going to
very educational.
-
These are the untold stories.
-
Hey everybody, Larry Lawton here
for another great addition of
-
Untold Stories and this is going
to be a good one.
-
This is called the 10 Unwritten
Rules You Need to Know About Prison
-
Before I get started again,
check out our member programs
-
check out our Instagram, Facebook
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Please check out our merch,
whatever you can do,
-
don't forget to subscribe.
And please tell a friend.
-
We're really trying to build this
thing for a lot of good reasons
-
and the main reason is to build
up a prison reform group
-
that's going to be making changes
in a system we all know is broke
-
So let me get into this next thing
I wanted to tell you guys about.
-
It's called the 10 Unwritten Rules,
and it's about prison.
-
Because if you didn't know these,
one: you could lose your life,
-
get stabbed, have a really rough time
-
I get called all the time about
people who made mistakes
-
they will be going to prison and it all,
of course, depends on what level prison
-
you're going to.
Let me get right into the Unwritten Rules.
-
Cause they're important things you would
need to know if you went to prison.
-
The first thing you do: obviously when you
go into prison,
-
don't believe anybody there is your buddy.
-
But the first unwritten rule is to look at
what people are wearing on their feet.
-
You're saying to me, what are you
talking about Larry?
-
Here's exactly what I'm talking about.
-
When I was transferred, and
I was transferred a lot
-
because I was a, I guess
you would just call me
-
a troubled inmate, a convict who
didn't care,
-
would fight the system, they gave
me diesel therapy
-
they did a lot of things to me
to make my life rough in prison.
-
Well, they transfer you. Obviously,
I ended up having a very good reputation in prison
-
so I was a convict and people knew me
and you'd go from one place to another.
-
You're in what they call "Con Air,"
the air transport
-
which I'll be doing a video on.
-
But anyway, as far as
the 10 Unwritten Rules,
-
that first rule is: What are
people wearing?
-
and here is why it is important:
-
If I go into a prison
and I come on the yard
-
I got my bed roll,
I'm getting assigned
-
to one of the units,
you walk into the unit
-
you see people milling around
all the time
-
They could be up on
the tiers looking down at you,
-
it's kind of intimidating if you don't
understand what's going on.
-
They're sizing you up, seeing who you are,
seeing what kind of guy-
-
how you carry yourself.
Are you meek, are you aggresive,
-
are you tough, the way
you walk, the way you look at people.
-
the way you don't stare them down,
but you don't look away.
-
It's an art to all of that.
-
One of the first things I do,
is look at what they're wearing.
-
Here's why. If I see people wearing,
flip flops...
-
I'm looking, it's not ready
to jump off.
-
If you see people wearing
boots, their prison-issued boots
-
If you see people wearing their boots,
"Why are they all wearing their boots?"
-
If you see people in sneakers and boots
and stuff like that,
-
you're saying to yourself, "what's
going on here?"
-
Usually when people are wearing
stuff like that, you know,
-
especially, if you're in the unit
and you come in later in the night
-
or sometimes you come in
after chow
-
they'll release you from R&D,
depending on what time they release you
-
when you get to that unit, if you see
people with sneakers milling around
-
You can feel it. You can feel tension,
something might jump off.
-
You're not involved, I'm not
saying to get involved,
-
and don't get involved, but
something might jump off
-
so you'd better be on your Ps
and Qs.
-
You'd better be ready, at all times.
-
Step back, get outta the way
watch two guys go at it,
-
you don't try to break stuff up,
you just back away
-
It's not your beef,
you just are a convict,
-
no lookin' at him.
But you'd better know that.
-
Now if I see people just
joking around,
-
and they're walking around
in flip flops and stuff,
-
they just got out of their shower,
and it's like "old home" week here,
-
this place is not going to
scare me too much. It's ok.
-
It's a prison, things can happen.
But ok, it's not a tension-filled place.
-
You'll know tension right away
in a prison.
-
Absolutely right away you'll know it.
And boy, I get that feeling
-
to this day no matter what I do.
I can feel tension, all the time.
-
It's just who I am.
-
The second thing you wanna know
in the Unwritten Rules:
-
What's the shower situation?
-
Listen, I like to be clean.
I don't ever want to be a dirty person.
-
You don't want to be a dirty person
in prison.
-
The worst thing you can do is
be a dude that smells,
-
doesn't clean up after himself,
and be with a celly.
-
I once took a dude's face and
grabbed him by the back of his hair
-
and smashed his face into a concrete wall.
-
Blood started pouring all over the place,
he just falls down
-
I did that because after two times-
He used to shave, we all shaved-
-
They have the sink and the toilet together
-
Here's a picture of it, right here.
-
And in that, you'd better
clean up after yourself.
-
If you brush your teeth, you don't
leave toothpaste in the bottom of that.
-
If you shave, you don't leave your
shavings, you know, the hairs, in there!
-
Whatever it is, you clean that out.
Just like you take your toilet
-
you know, you have a single unit. As you
can see in the picture, its the
-
single units, when you go there,
you use that toilet, you clean that.
-
You take a piss, you take toilet paper and
you clean that toilet, that "seat cover."
-
There's no seat cover, you're sitting on
stainless steel.
-
But you wanna be seeing
piss stuff on that?
-
If I got a celly and he walks in,
and you know,
-
say they assign someone usually you don't
let that happen depending on the place
-
they get a guy and he comes in your cell
and he says "hi, how you doing?"
-
I'll know within 5 minutes what kind
of dude this dude is.
-
Is he a convict, is he a newbie? Is he
scared so he doesn't know how to act?
-
The way he handles himself
right around that toilet area,
-
I'm going to know what kind
of guy he is.
-
And I wanna know what kind of guy he is.
I wanna know what I'm dealing with.
-
The guy that I smashed,
I didn't just smash him.
-
I told him a few times, I said,
"Listen man, clean up man.
-
We eat, we get water out of that sink. We
fill up our bowls, we put water in there
-
You might get that water for your rice and
then you're going to put your rice
-
in the microwave. Or you're going to make
hot water.
-
You're going to make the water out of
that, you go boil it in the microwave
-
for coffee
in the morning.
-
Listen, you clean up after yourself.
That's important.
-
But you wanna know, the second rule,
is the shower situation,
-
What's it like? Where do they go?
Who showers who?
-
So, when you're going in that unit,
you wanna know the shower situation.
-
What I mean by that is, the have six
showers on each side of the unit
-
and the top left was where the white
dudes used to go.
-
That was kind of their shower.
-
Another shower is where the Hispanics go.
Another shower is where the blacks go.
-
Another shower is maybe where
you, you know, shit's going on.
-
Like we used to make wine in on.
So a lot of times guys couldn't
-
take a shower, because we were
literally cooking wine and we made
-
the wine out of that shower. So it's
important to know the shower situation.
-
And you don't just walk around. Like
obviously, when I say watch
-
the shower situation, you gotta watch
for a minute.
-
When you see people go to shower,
or you see a person go to the shower,
-
are they going with their bag and a towel
and just not giving a crap?
-
It's okay, like there's no tension? Or are
they walking to that shower with
-
their boots on and their
friends with them?
-
And then you'll see their friend just
stand on a rail, you know,
-
outside the shower, just looking
around, watching, you know.
-
Seeing what's coming.
Because his friend might see
-
two dudes coming up,
maybe trying to hit that guy.
-
Maybe that guy's got, you know,
something wrong, something happening
-
and his friend is going to say,
bang on that door
-
and say, "Man, get-" and
the guy puts his boots on
-
and he gets his shank
and he's ready to go.
-
I don't care if his weiny's
hanging out. Doesn't mean anything.
-
He's got his shank and he's
got his boots.
-
Cause you sure don't want to be
left with your dick hanging
-
in your hand if they're
coming after you with a shank.
-
So it's important to know
the shower situation.
-
Watch it, because if you see, you'll feel
it. You'll see how people are reacting.
-
What times they shower. You'll get an
idea of how the groove goes.
-
Are the showers even open in the day?
Sometimes they're not.
-
Who's cleaning the showers? It's
the orderlys in the unit,
-
but you don't want to just
disrespect a dude and just
-
and go in while he just did something
he didn't get inspected by the CO
-
He's going to look at you like
who's this dude?
-
You wanna know the shower situation,
it's important.
-
The next rule you wanna know is
-
the TV Rules. What's going on
in the TV rooms.
-
In Atlanta, we had 4 TV rooms.
We had a black TV room, a
-
Hispanic TV room, a white TV room,
and a sports TV room.
-
Everybody hung out. Now that does
not mean Larry can't go to the
-
black TV room. He's not gonna,
he's not gonna take a spot from
-
somebody in that room that's
going in there all the time,
-
Vice versa, the black guys don't come
into the white guys rooms.
-
Now, all your friends, you come on in,
"Hey Larry," you know,
-
"What's going on, I need to
speak to you for a sec."
-
"Sure, come in for a second,
what's going on?"
-
or, "Hey," you're running a football
ticket and "I had a winner, man,
-
look at the game, look at the ticket. It's
guaranteed cause see I didn't
-
mess something up." You can talk to them.
It's not like you can't meet people
-
or talk to people in TV rooms.
But you see which TV room is yours
-
or with your race. They can say "oh,
there's no race going on in prison--"
-
there is. Depending on the prison you're
in, the prison actually
-
promotes it. As sad as that is.
-
Because they'd rather have the blacks
fighting the whites, or the Hispanics
-
fighting the blacks so they're not worried
about themselves, the prison.
-
They actually, trust me, they like that,
in their own way.
-
The fourth is politics.
-
What's the prison politics?
-
When I went into Atlanta, you know,
I hated the mob politics.
-
I call it the mob politics, and the mafia stuff.
-
You get these old timers,
"Hey, you should talk to him,
-
wait man, that guys no good,
you'd better be careful with him."
-
As much as you might not like it,
you gotta know it.
-
You gotta know who's the guy to
go to.
-
You gotta know who the shot caller is
in each group.
-
And the black guys got
a shot caller,
-
the Hispanics got a shot caller,
the Indians got a shot caller,
-
the white guys got a shot caller.
Those are the guys you go to
-
if you have a big beef with someone
before you do something on your own.
-
They might say "wait, lets
talk to this shot caller"
-
and they might say "listen, hit him,
do what you want.
-
Stab him up. Do what you're gonna do."
You know, "It's open, do what you want."
-
Fifth: Chow Hall Seating. You're gonna
hook up with somebody
-
and then you gotta know, again,
the chow hall, which side to go to
-
cause usually there's two sides,
where is your seating area, give or take.
-
I watched a man get killed
for sitting in the wrong section.
-
Killed. For sitting in the wrong section.
-
Obviously, people don't just
come up and stab you if that happens.
-
But you might think they're trying to
intimidate you and you try to buck up
-
and sit there, and before you know it
you're in a situation over
-
sitting in the wrong seat. And when
I saw wrong seat
-
maybe the shot caller sits in that spot
everyday at 12 o'clock.
-
Why would you start trouble by
sitting in that seat like you're a badass?
-
You don't test them like that.
This isn't the county jail where you
-
gotta hit someone to make it known that
you're not gonna be pushed over.
-
This is prison.
-
This is where you are going to live,
for the next X number of years.
-
And you want to survive it.
-
Depending on where it is,
you wanna survive it.
-
Next is the commissary.
-
The commissary is the store of a prison.
-
And let me tell you how important
the commissary store is.
-
You go to commissary every week.
You have a certain day of the week
-
to go to that store,
by your number.
-
My number was 52-224-004
So 224. Mine would be the last 4.
-
They might say all even numbers
go on Tuesdays.
-
All odd numbers go on Wednesday.
Or whatever system that prison
-
has set up. You gotta know the commissary.
-
In Atlanta, when I went to Atlanta,
Atlanta was so wild.
-
You would get robbed
coming from commissary
-
cause there was what they call
a "blind area."
-
So people would literally get robbed
like it's a shake-down or robbery.
-
You gotta know, what kind of place
it is and who to go with
-
and you gotta get to know the right people
that you're not a pushover
-
you're not gonna give your shit up.
-
What are the items that are hot
in this prison.
-
You know, certain things are needed.
And then, that goes into the next rule.
-
You gotta know who the storemen are.
-
You go, "what do you mean,
what's a storeman?"
-
A storeman is a guy in prison
who runs, literally, a store.
-
And he'll charge 2 for 3.
-
So if you borrowed 2 soups from him,
you gotta give him 3 soups back
-
on his commissary day. If you borrow
a bar of soap, you might have to give
-
him two bars of soap when you come back.
-
Or he'll give you two,
and you gotta give him three bars of soap.
-
You can buy pretty much
anything off a storeman.
-
Some of the storemen sell
actually sandwiches
-
They'll sell drugs of course,
or some sell anything
-
from sex, to drugs, to whatever.
-
But the storeman usually sells
items that are on the commissary
-
and that dude wants his shit back
and if you don't pay him,
-
you're gonna get stabbed.
Trust me, you will get stabbed.
-
And it's important to know
the good dudes.
-
Who's solid, who you can talk to.
If you had an issue, you know,
-
money didn't come, the guys not gonna
really get offended cause it was
-
a legit thing. You know, people aren't
assholes in there.
-
They want their money, they lent
you something, you give it back.
-
You wanna borrow a book of stamps,
you gotta give him a book and a half back
-
that's how the money is in prison.
Stamps.
-
You gotta understand what the
money is in prison.
-
The most unwritten rule when I was in,
and it has changed a bit since I was in,
-
but not totally, is who's your
cellmate?
-
Trust me, who's your cellmate?
-
I had a cellmate who killed
a man with an axe handle on airforce base.
-
Good dude. I know you're saying,
"what do you mean, good dude?"
-
Good dude. I trusted him.
-
You gotta know who's your "celly"
cause there was a "celly" there
-
who stabbed his "celly" in the
chest. Killed him.
-
Put a shank right in his chest.
And went back to bed.
-
You better know. Unwritten rule?
You gotta be able to read people
-
and get that "celly" that's
normal.
-
Cause trust me, it's worth you
bucking it, and going to the hole
-
and fighting, than getting into a cell
with the wrong guy.
-
Cause how would you like to be
locked down with a guy
-
who's a psychopath and at
10 o'clock at night
-
when the doors are locked
and there's really no guards around
-
even in the units, you could be
dying in that unit
-
and they don't give a shit. This guy kills
you, cause he's a violent psychopath.
-
You gotta feel that out.
You gotta know a couple dudes
-
You gotta rap with people, you gotta
know how to speak. Understanding how
-
to talk to people is probably the
best skill you could have.
-
Number 9, very good
important rule.
-
Who's the snitches in that place?
-
Trust me, there's snitches
in all prisons.
-
You'll see them, the little freakin'
weasels.
-
They're up near the guard, talking
like they're litte buddies
-
and stuff, and you look at them like,
"who's this asshole?"
-
You gotta watch who the snitches are.
-
And they have what they call
"note droppers."
-
Or "dry snitchers."
You know, people who would do it sneakily.
-
Sneak a note under the counselors
door.
-
Hand a note out at night and
they put in the mailbox.
-
And then the guards check the mail
every night when they get it out
-
And when they get it out,
and they see a note, you know,
-
"Lawton's got a shank in the cell."
-
That's how you get people shaken down.
-
And people,
you gotta kind of know who they are.
-
You can watch the prison for a little bit
-
and figure out who's the stand up guys.
who's the convicts,
-
that is super important.
-
And finally, a very important
unwritten rule in prison is the yard.
-
You want your rec, you wanna get out
there, and you wanna have rec.
-
You wanna play handball, you wanna
play basketball, you wanna workout,
-
you wanna go do pullups, and dips,
and you wanna walk the track,
-
feel the fresh air, and get sun on
your face.
-
You gotta know the yard rules.
-
In prison you'll see different groups
in different sections of a yard.
-
You can feel tension on a yard right
away and you'll see something jump off.
-
In a penitentiary though, they will
shoot down on that yard
-
with the gun towers that
are around that yard
-
and they will fire down on that yard.
-
Man, when they say "get down,"
on the yard, boom, you drop.
-
Cause they will shoot you. They have
bean bags, they have rubber bullets
-
they have other things but they
also have live ammo.
-
So they will shoot you.
-
I've seen them shoot down on a yard, man
and I'm telling you,
-
you don't know if it's you next.
You sit there, man.
-
You're still as you can believe.
-
But knowing the yard rules is
when you go there,
-
you're going to see a lot of things
on a yard
-
dudes sharpening shanks along a
concrete, along a fenceline,
-
and they're leaning against the fence
and they're sharpening the shank.
-
They're just sharpening, and
sharpening, and sharpening.
-
What do you think, you
look at them? They don't wanna know
-
that you're even looking at them.
You're going to see drug deals go down.
-
You're gonna see punks getting fucked
in the corner sometimes.
-
You're gonna see stuff go down
on the yard.
-
You gotta know the yard rules.
-
Where do you go? Who do you see?
You need something,
-
who's kinda running the yard? Where are
the guards stationed on the yard?
-
You know, There's usually the guards in the
tower, you can check them out
-
you can't see, but you can blind them.
-
But there might be guards on the yard.
-
There usually is, you'll see them
walk around.
-
Something that you gotta know, gotta
have that feel.
-
You gotta know the yard rules.
If you want rec,
-
and you sure want rec,
believe me, you wanna get out of that hole
-
When you're in that hole, when
you're waiting to "get on the compound"
-
they call it, you're gonna wanna get out
in the fresh air, get sun on that body.
-
I'm telling you. And you're gonna wanna
connect with the right people
-
and that's where you do it,
on the yard.
-
Listen guys, I don't want you in prison,
but if you gotta go I want you to survive.
-
And no matter what it is,
be respectful of others.
-
In life and in prison.
Just because you go to prison
-
doesn't mean you respect people.
In fact, you respect them more.
-
The dudes you disrespect just might
kill you.
-
Alright ladies and gentlemen,
have a great day.
-
Check out our merch below,
please sign up
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Subscribe to our channel,
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Pass the word, you know that
always helps
-
Thanks for your support.
I really mean it. It means a lot.
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Have a great day everybody.
Stay safe, have a great one.