Take it from those who have been there: Prison life is hard on people who need to be in control.
Especially politicians accustomed to giving orders, cutting deals, spending millions - and getting their way.
Sound like anyone you've heard of?
Former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo is due to report to federal prison tomorrow, assigned to serve his 55-month sentence at a low-security institution in Ashland, Ky. His attorneys have fought that, wanting Fumo placed closer to family in Philadelphia.
What's definite, experts say, is that prisons specialize in turning people like Fumo from kings to peasants.
In free society, his dominion included four homes, a 100-acre farm, and a $1 million law-firm salary. In prison, it shrinks to a bunk, a locker, and a 12-cents-an-hour job.
As a former power broker, experts said, Fumo can expect petty harassment from inmates and staff eager to show him that he's no longer mighty.
"It's going to be a very humbling experience for him," said Jeff Horn, a former federal inmate who runs an Allentown prison consultancy. "Every facet of his life is going to be regulated, everything from how many minutes he can talk on the phone every month to how many pairs of boxers he can have in his locker."
Fumo, 66, was convicted in March of all 137 counts of conspiracy, fraud, and related charges after a trial that documented not just his crimes but also his personal compulsions and idiosyncracies.
Fumo is a technology geek, nicknamed "Sen. R2D2" by colleagues. In prison, he'll no longer have Internet access. Or so much as a cell phone.
Controlling? Fumo hired a taxpayer-paid private eye to snoop on a former girlfriend, his ex-wife, and his political opponents.
"He was the ultimate control freak," investigator Frank Wallace testified during the five-month trial.
Fumo demanded that a particular brand of hair spray, Sebastian, be shipped to him. He kept sets of the same clothes - khaki pants, blue shirts - in the closets of his homes, testimony showed.
The good news for Fumo: He'll still get to wear khaki, because it's the color of the uniform worn by federal inmates.
The bad news: As a newcomer, he'll hold a low slot in the prison pecking order.
"He's at the very bottom," said Steve Vincent, who runs Federal Prison Consultant Services. "When you're back there cleaning toilets and some big inmate tells you to get out so he can use it, you know where you stand."
Vincent, sentenced in a union-related bribery case, served two years at the Kentucky institution to which Fumo has been assigned. Vincent called it "one of the nicer federal prisons," offering country fresh air and scenic views.
"Fumo should be thanking his lucky stars to get Ashland," he said.
Vincent is among the pioneers in the business of advising defendants and lawyers on all aspects of prison life. The advisers are popular among white-collar criminals, who generally have no experience with prison.
Swindler Bernie Madoff hired a consultant, as did home-design diva Martha Stewart.
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