Good point.
Yes they do. My point was that notorious prisoners aren’t segregated as a matter of policy. Manson and Dahmer were in the general population. So are many other “famous” prisoners, like Mark Chapman, David Berkowitz, Arthur Shawcross, etc.
Where are you getting this information? I worked in the NY prison system. Chapman and Berkowitz are in segregation units. So was Shawcross when he was alive.
I’ve also read that Manson is in a segregation unit in California.
We just had a story yesterday that someone convicted of murder in a very public case was transfered to a priswon in another state. Officials won’t say anything about it, but that has to be more than just an overcrowding issue.
If you are in general population most people do not give a shit what you are in for. Being housed in Protective custody automatically makes you a target. Not because you raped a baby but because you may be a narc. Rats are lower than anyone.
Two things:
First, I read a book written by a guy who had done some time, and he stated categorically that those who commit crimes against children (be it murder, abuse, rape, etc) make convenient targets for the other prisoners. One, because many of the other prisoners were abused themselves, and two, because harming a child isn’t an act of courage (like, say, killing a cop would be). A book I’ve read that was written by a former warden said basically the same thing, only in a different way.
Second, another book I read was about a horrific child abuse case. The victim’s stepfather went to prison, and literally didn’t last a week. When the other cons got wind of what he’d done, he was beaten to death.
Glad that this thread was started, because I’ve always wondered about this as well. It’s almost like the “honor” among hardcore prisoners is - “kill a 4-year-old? you won’t last a week in here”, but “kill the guy working the 7-11 to make a better life for his wife and 4-year-old? well hey, here’s a carton of cigarettes for you, on the house”.
I’m a reporter… I’ve been to Attica, Groveland, etc. Have not interviewed those people I named but have interviewed others.
My point was that these segregation units have them mixing with other prisoners during the day. If you read the parole reports, you’ll see that both Chapman and Berkowitz have jobs in the prison that bring them into regular contact with other inmates. I was attempting to draw a contrast between the federal SuperMax prisoners who never have interaction with other prisoners.
Manson was nearly killed a few years ago when another inmate set him on fire. Berkowitz was stabbed when he was at Attica.
FWIW, it’s my understanding that Shawcross was not in the segregated unit for most of his time at Sullivan. He ended up there in 1999 after they found out he was selling autographs and artwork on ebay.
I use to run the unit in Attica that Chapman lives in (and the one that Berkowitz lived in although he wasn’t there when I was). I’m very familiar with the way it works.
There’s no unit which has complete isolation. That would be illegal. Inmates are not supposed to live in isolation and are allowed some contact with other inmates, even if it’s just talking to guys in nearby cells.
Segregation means that we limit contact with other inmates, isolate segregation inmates from general population, and monitor any segregation inmate who’s outside of his cell. In Chapman’s case he was a porter - he was the guy who swept and mopped the galleries. This gave him plenty of opportunity to talk to the other inmates in the unit but it was hardly “regular contact”. The inmates he was talking to were all locked in their cells and there was an officer standing a few feet away.
Son of Sam was attacked in prison and has some fairly serious scars from it. He’s alive, though.
Yeah, it’s ridiculous, of course. There’s no real honor among the savages that compose the majority of the prison population (at least the ones who aren’t in there just for dealing drugs and not any violent crimes.) They just need someone to feel superior to. “I may be a murderer and a thief but at least I don’t hurt children.” Whatever. The lives of children are not inherently more valuable than the lives of adults and it’s utter bullshit that people act like they are. These prisoners just like to brutalize people and they rationalize it by saying, “oh, he hurt children.” A truly honorable individual would not want to brutalize anyone.
You have to realize that a lot of prisoners were themselves the victims of abuse when they were children. So they are going to be hostile to any child abusers.
I don’t doubt that, but I also don’t doubt that a lot of brutes will also pile on who were not abused in any way as children and simply want to pick on someone who they know won’t have any defenders.
In the 70s, I read a prison memoir from probably the 50s (Can’t remember the name or find it on Wikipedia or Yahoo). The author described in the first chapter the pecking order among prisoners: Lifers (Murderers and armed robbers) were on the top rung, con men/bunco artists were surprisingly high, sex offenders (“rapos”) were near the bottom and people who had victimized children were at the very bottom.
Carl Williams, an infamous Australian drug dealer and murderer. He was killed in a high security prison, almost certainly as revenge or retaliation over rumors he was a police informant. The court case is still in progress though.
That was more likely part of the ongoing gangland war.
I think this topic has been raised here before and one comment I recall was that the repercussions are generally more in the mind of the public than what actually happens.
As has been noted, defenseless people in jail could be easy targets. But grubs like Richard Speck seem to have survived pretty well.
Maybe Qagdop can give us a little more information (thanks as well to Little Nemo).
Generally, the people who are at the “top” are prisoners who belong to some gang. Their status is based on being a Blood or a Latin King or a Mexican Mafioso or a Hell’s Angel rather than whatever their individual crime was.
I vaguely remember reading that after a child murderer was convicted and sent to prison, the child’s mother received an offer that the murderer could be “taken care of” (i.e., killed) in jail if she wished.
Another two notorious UK murderers have been attacked in prison recently as well - the murderer of Sarah Payne was stabbed in the eye last month and Peter Tobin was beaten by a number of inmates in 2007. It seems to be a pretty common thing, but I don’t know whether it’s because of their crimes or simply because they’re infamous.
This is part of it, but there does seem to be a twisted sense of right and wrong among criminals. You plugged the clerk at 7-11? Well, you needed the money and he was standing the way. You killed your wife? Eh, bitch was probably fucking around and deserved it.
You raped a 4 year old? You are just a sick fuck. There is no reason to do that. You will die.