Prison Culture

Inmates speak their own language, cultivate their own customs and rituals, and adhere to their own norms. They laugh at a joke that an external observer would find lame and react violently to an apparently friendly gesture. Their interpretation of behavior is clearly different from outside society. It is dictated by their own prison code, which categorizes behavior as hostile, offensive, neutral, or friendly in its own fashion.

Marek M. Kaminski, Games Prisoners Play, 2004