No place for titans.

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.

Fumo's attorneys relied on the Justice Advocacy Group, led by Joel Sickler in Alexandria, Va. Efforts to interview Sickler for this article were unsuccessful, as were efforts to contact Fumo defense attorney Dennis Cogan.

Fumo's lawyers contend the 525-mile trip from Philadelphia to Ashland would be hard on his fiancee and grown children. According to the Bureau of Prisons Web site, the prison doesn't have a residential treatment program, which Fumo said he needed to kick addictions to alcohol and Xanax, an antianxiety medicine.

At sentencing, his lawyers asked the judge to recommend that he go to the prison in Lewisburg, Pa., about 60 miles north of Harrisburg. The court obliged, but the Bureau of Prisons decided otherwise.

With time off for good behavior and for enrollment in a treatment program, Fumo could be free in three years.

New inmates go through a check-in procedure that evaluates them medically, assigns them to a housing unit, and gives them a job, said Linda Thomas, a Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman.

Larry Levine, founder of Wall Street Prison Consultants, said it's not that simple. And he should know, having served 10 years for possessing counterfeit securities and drug conspiracy.

The Bureau of Prisons has already assigned Fumo a prison number, 62033-066. But it's unclear if he has been billeted to Ashland's low-security prison or to the even less-restrictive adjacent camp. A camp assignment would mean Fumo would sleep in a dormitory, not a cell. But it wouldn't mean his life would be easy.

On the outside, people like Fumo were titans. On the inside, "they're nobody," Levine said. Young, often less-educated corrections officers hold the power.

On arrival, Levine said, Fumo will be escorted to what's known as R&D, Receiving and Discharge. He'll be told to strip, then to show the soles of his feet and the backs of his ears so prison staffers can check for contraband.

"They're going to make him bend over and cough, make sure he's not hiding a machine gun up there," Levine said.

He'll be issued a temporary prison jumpsuit, then sent to the medical team. He'll get a physical - important because Fumo's doctors say he's in poor health. He's suffered a serious heart attack and battles coronary-artery disease, diabetes, and kidney disease. He's had heart surgery and four back operations.

His medical treatment will influence his daily routine.

Next, Fumo will face questions from a psychologist: Does he want to hurt himself or anyone else? And if he did, would he say so? Is he part of an organization that wants to overthrow the U.S. government? Does he belong to a gang?

He'll be given a housing assignment, a hygiene kit, and his bedding. Within a day or so, he'll be issued standard clothing: Three pairs of khaki pants, five khaki shirts, five T-shirts, underwear, socks, a belt, and a pair of boots.

"If you're lucky," Levine said, "you'll get new underwear. If you're lucky, you'll get old boots - they're broken in."

Lights out is generally 10:30 p.m. At least twice during the night, corrections officers will come through with flashlights to count the inmates.

The lights blink on about 6 a.m., provoking a rush for sinks and toilets. Construction of prisons hasn't kept pace with an inmate population that has surged from 136,000 in the late 1990s to 207,000 today. More than half are serving time for drug offenses.

The crowding means inmates spend a lot of time waiting in line for privileges such as telephones, use of which is limited to five hours a month.

In the mornings, Fumo will work at his job - anything from food service to landscaping - and in the afternoons he'll be allowed to visit the library, take classes, or watch TV. The next day will be a repeat, and the day after that the same.

"It's Groundhog Day," Levine said. "It's the same [stuff] over and over and over again."

People going to prison for the first time have questions, starting with: Will I be sexually assaulted? Or physically attacked?

Vincent's company - motto, "Be prepared, not scared" - offers martial-arts training to clients who want to be ready to defend themselves.

It may seem hard to imagine the gray-haired Fumo delivering a karate chop to a bunkmate's Adam's apple. And chances are he won't have to. It's mostly young inmates at higher-security prisons who have trouble.

Life in lower-security settings isn't like the movies. It's not The Shawshank Redemption, where inmates brutalize one another. These prisoners generally are serving short sentences. Most want to do their time quietly.

But Fumo's fame guarantees he'll be confronted, said Horn, who runs Ready 4 Prison consultants.

"Some of the inmates are going to be challenging him, and some of the staff are going to be in his face for no other reason than they can be," said Horn, who served 15 years for drug conspiracy. "The best thing is to try to be very low-key. You want to fit in. You don't want to stand out."