i've spent a night in the pokey once or twice, yeah, mostly people just want to be left alone (prison is different thing than jail though). It's a weird feeling when the door shuts and you know you can't get out. Most people are pretty quiet and just thinking about how bad they screwed up heh.

Depends on if it's jail or prison, and what level of security/crimes.

Jail is usually short term, so is less of a clique/gang issue (except some areas).

Right, but the folks I’ve talked to about it in a prison context basically said if you can stay away from the drugs / alcohol you won’t get caught up in the gang stuff. Most “prisons” in the US are minimum security prison camps; if you go to prison for DUI you’d almost certainly end up there. Most of the people there are non-violent offenders with short sentences.

The ones with the gang problems are maximum security, but unless you were involved with real serious shit (murder, armed robbery, rape, etc) you won’t end up there if you behave. This is discounting some of the racial bias however (if you’re black or Hispanic you’re much more likely to end up in high security prisons).