Inside, Blagojevich's life will be strictly regimented. The impeached governor — who was heard on the FBI wiretaps scoffing at earning a low six-figure salary — will work a menial prison job, possibly cleaning bathrooms or doing landscape work, starting at 12 cents an hour.

Guards take a half dozen head counts a day, including several overnight, and Blagojevich will be told what to do rather than give orders to sycophant aides, as he did while Illinois' top executive.

"He's going to be doing a lot of, 'yes sir' and 'no sir,'" said Jim Laski, a former Chicago city clerk sentenced to two years in prison for corruption in 2006. "It's a humbling, humiliating experience. But you have to take it."

Blagojevich's fame outside won't do him any good inside, explained Jim Marcus, a Chicago-based defense attorney and former prosecutor. "You say you were once the governor of Illinois — no one gives hoot," Marcus said. "Prisoners are going to say, 'You're in the same boat as me, pal. Now go clean the toilets.'"