paperwork

Court documents revealing what a prisoner's charges, criminal history, downward departures, etc. are. This is used to determine whether a person is a snitch, child molestor, or other kind of person considered undesirable by other prisoners. The Presentence Investigation Report is the gold standard of paperwork, because it tells everything that the probation officer was able to dig up about the prisoner's life, and details any assistance he may have rendered to the government; but prisoners are often forbidden to have it in their possession for that exact reason. At higher security prisons, people are often expected to show their paperwork within a certain period of time (e.g. a week or a month) or they'll be checked in to protective custody by their fellow prisoners.