Until the 1990s a wiseguy can easly bribe a guard for some best food or other things but now especially if you stay in a West Coast prison and must pay for protection.
I think to John Pappa that get life at 25 y old,damn why he tried to enlight his sentence?
Bribing guards is not frequent as moves like Goodfellas make it. Guards taking bribes, especially in federal or state prisons far from where the inmates live is almost non-existent. Always has been that way. It actually got easier in the local city jails after the 1980's, due to guards being hired from the same neighborhoods as the inmates.
