mprisonment and prisons are a very interesting subject, mostly since there are so many different approaches to the issue.  Throughout most of human history, prisons were awful, dank, deadly, dungeon-like places where the accused were thrown away to rot.  Guilty or not, it didn't much matter since there wasn't anything like a fair and objective court system.  Staying out of prison was far more dependent upon who you know and how rich and powerful you were, than whether or not you'd actually committed a crime.  Power equaled freedom and the right to treat anyone pretty much however you wanted to, and while that's still the case in much of the world, it's no longer completely true in the civilized Western world.

Prisons in the past were always full of the poor and underprivileged, and while that's still mostly true, it is changing somewhat.  What is really changing in the modern era is how prisons are run and constructed, and the methods used to punish/rehabilitate the prisoners.

A few of the more enlightened countries on earth have begun to realize that prisoners are eventually released back into society, and that if they have some job skills and people skills they're much less likely to have to return to crime to try and earn a living.  Those countries have therefore moved away from the shortsighted "lock them up and throw away the key" theory, or the theory that prison should be miserable and unpleasant, as a deterrent to people coming back there.

This seems to be work, but the problem is that you need the public and political capital to push the program through in the first place, and it can only take place in a society that's devoted to bettering itself and knows that pulling up the individuals on the lowest rungs of society is essential to this process.  The US, at least as of the early 2000's, is very far from being that sort of place.

Various news items and articles about crimes, prisoners, and incarceration are collected on this article page, with the most recent additions made to the top of the page.

October 13, 2003

Enjoyably amusing story about a convicted child molester who ended up back in lock up for parole violations.  His problem? They put him into a holding cell with one of his former victims.  The victim was 11 at the time, but now that it's 11 years later, he was more than able to extract some revenge.

Kinder was in Tampa for a court hearing before returning to state prison. He was put in a large room with about 65 other inmates at the Orient Road Jail. One of them was Jason Edward Flores, being held on a probation violation. Flores, now 22, was 11 when Kinder abused him and three other boys.

Flores' attorney, Ricky Escobar of Tampa, confirmed Thursday that his client jumped on Kinder and punched him repeatedly, knocking out a tooth and leaving Kinder unconscious.

September 25, 2003

Depressing but excellent article by a man who was arrested and spent three days in jail due to identity theft, exacerbated by his being black and getting zero (or perhaps negative) assistance from the criminal system.  Beats spending 20 years for a crime you didn't commit due to incorrect eyewitness testimony (which is just about the only kind there is), but it's still a pretty shitty way to pass the time.  He chronicles the events that lead to his arrest and then how the time passed while he was in jail, before finally getting to his release, and the explanation for it all.

That's the really depressing part.

Judge Stolz ordered the delivery of the arrest photos and fingerprints just before the afternoon recess. He ordered me released on my own recognizance, but I was told to return after lunch. I was then taken back to my cell to sign release forms. Three documents were handed to me.

One had my name printed on it, and the others had the name "Anwar Bostick" typed above my Social Security number. The papers seemed to suggest that Bostick had obtained my name and personal information. When arrested for the crimes with which I had been charged that weekend, he somehow passed off my identity as his own, was released after making bail, and then failed to show up for his court date. His three arrest warrants were thus reissued—in my name. Because our arrest photos and fingerprints were never compared when I was arrested, it was nearly Monday evening by the time anyone in the system found out we were not the same person.

I refused to sign the release forms. "You'll sign them if you want to get out of here," a guard said. Another officer agreed.

"Anwar Bostick is your alias," the second officer informed me while flipping through the forms. "Are you refusing to sign this? Because if you are, you'll just have to sit in jail and wait until whenever they get around to calling you back to court." I refused to incriminate myself. They ignored the judge's ruling that I be released, and returned me to a basement holding cell.

After lunch, a captain and lieutenant for the Department of Corrections showed up to settle the dispute. Following a lengthy debate, it was discovered that my signature was not even necessary. According to the captain, someone without the authority to do so had introduced the mandatory signature policy as "a rule" and it had become the standard.

This is the sort of thing you need to know if you're one of those, "Oh, more and more arrests are great, since bad things only happen to guilty people and it could never happen to me or anyone who didn't do anything wrong." Pollyanna types.  Get a clue before a weekend in jail over a typo on an arrest warrant gives you one.

All of those TV shows about cops and lawyers and CSI people doing magic to be sure the guilty are punished and the dead are avenged and the innocent are treated fairly are utter bullshit, compared to real life.  The criminal justice system is an ugly, dirty, inefficient, corrupt mess, and countless innocent people have weekends, months, years, and entire lives ruined by incompetence and complacency every day.

August 25, 2003

The big news on Saturday was that the famous child-molesting Boston priest, John Geoghan, was murdered in jail by another inmate. They've scheduled an autopsy, but it's not entirely clear why, since they know for sure that he was strangled. Probably some guards saw the end of it, or maybe the whole thing if they wanted him dead or had a decent bribe to overlook things.

Geoghan was being held in protective custody to shield him from the general prison population, but he still had some contact with other inmates in protective custody, Department of Correction spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said.

One of those "other inmates" took matters into his own hands, it seems.  Literally, unless he maybe used some sort of a pillowcase noose or something.  Did he deserve to die?  I'd say yes, and hopefully in as painful a fashion as possible.

Geoghan often targeted boys from broken homes, ingratiating himself during frequent visits or fun outings. One victim said Geoghan molested him as the two were driving home from getting an ice cream cone. Others said Geoghan molested them after visiting their rooms at bedtime to tuck them in, sometimes while whispering prayers.

You'd think a lot of people must have wanted the chickenhawk dead, after his hundreds of molestations, but of course the boring news articles about it don't even address that possibility, and are instead full of quotes from the few of his victims who are all forgiving and such.

The former priest didn't deserve to be killed, some victims and their advocates say, but his death probably won't bring much comfort to survivors of clergy sex abuse.

Paul Baier, president of the victims' group Survivors First, said only the courts had the right to decide the fate of a criminal.

"He wasn't convicted to death and if he was murdered in prison that was more than he was sentenced to," Baier said. "(But) I don't think this brings any more solace to his victims."

One of those victims, Ralph DelVecchio, said Geoghan deserved prison time but didn't deserve to be killed.

"I wouldn't say he deserved to die, you know?" DelVecchio said. "He was in jail — that's where I believed he should be."

DelVecchio said he didn't wish ill on Geoghan.

"It's over with," he said.

Borrrrrrrrrrr-ing.  Where is a quote from someone who hasn't let it all go and does hate the son of a bitch, and who wants him brought back to life so he can be murdered again?  I'd think the only regret anyone has about this is that he was just strangled, rather than being made a suck bitch by about 50 of the biggest, hardest, dirtiest sons of bitches in the country.

I like the gall of the church too.

The Rev. Christopher Coyne, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, offered prayers for Geoghan's family.

"Upon hearing the news of the tragic death of John Geoghan, the Archdiocese of Boston offers prayer for the repose of John's soul, and extends its prayers in consolation to his beloved sister, Kathy, at this time of personal loss," he said.

I guess they have to be consistent with the whole "all human life is precious" thing that the Pope clings to, and pretend they didn't want him dead 20 years ago, but this has to be hard for anyone personally affected by the bastard to hear.

I asked Malaya what "repose of John's soul" meant in this context, since she's an ex-Catholic and knows a lot more about the whole theology of it than I do. Apparently it's just sort of a generic statement that means, "Someone is dead and we wish him the best but only God can judge whether their sins are forgiven or not." Even in a case such as this one, where the soul's next stop would be a bubbling pit of pitchfork-stiffed tar if any of the legends about Hell are to be believed, the church's official position has to be that only God can judge.  Man this sort of thing makes me glad I'm not religious; I just can't deal with that level of bullshit and doublespeak.

My other pondering about the issue is; was it a contract hit?  Pay some inmate a few hundred bucks, pay some guards to look the other way for five minutes and bam; one dead pedophile. Happy bullshit quotes in the news aside, this guy ruined the childhoods of hundreds of people.  And for all the people who got over it, out of those hundreds of terrified little boys you know damn well that at least "dozens" have grown into angry, bitter, vengeful men.  Men who wanted the son of a bitch dead. Or if you prefer to get all conspiracy-happy, you can blame the church.  Geoghan still had many claims pending against him, and he was likely to face additional trials.  Trials that would once again drag the Archdiocese and Church through the mud.  You do the math.

The other possibility is that he might have been killed for some other reason entirely. 

Joseph L. Druce, 37, who received a life sentence in 1989 for murder, armed robbery and other counts, was placed in isolation and will face murder charges in Geoghan's death, Conte said. In 2001, Druce was charged with mailing a threatening letter containing white powder and indicating it was contaminated with anthrax.

Everyone is assuming the guy didn't like the priest since he was a molester, or because he wanted to make a name for himself in the prison.  And most people know that "chickenhawks", child molesters, get butchered in prison; murder or worse.  But Joe Druce was in for life, was no stranger to violence and murder and nutty behavior, and might be mentally ill, for all we know.  They might have gotten into an argument about whose turn it was to mop the floor, or perhaps Joe was stealing the father's food and the father objected on a bad day.  People get killed in real life over $5 or a bad joke, and in prison it's far more arbitrary than that.

Hopefully we'll find out in the days to come when some real news about the case emerges, rather than just more "Oh isn't it sad he's dead, etc, etc."

And in my penalty for not blogging on Sundays: after I wrote all of the above on Sunday, a new article was released on Monday morning with far more information about the murder. I'll just throw in a few of the juicier quotes.

The Washington Post reported Monday Geoghan was followed into his cell by Joseph Druce, 37, who bound and gagged him before strangling him with a bedsheet, according to a union representative for prison guards.

Druce jammed the electronically operated cell door to prevent guards from opening it, tied Geoghan's hands behind his back and gagged him, The Post said. He then repeatedly jumped from the bed in the cell onto Geoghan's motionless body, according to the account by Robert Brouillette, an executive of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union.

Officials refused to say how Druce, whose father said he held a grudge against homosexuals, managed to get near Geoghan in a special section of the Souza Baranowski prison 30 miles northwest of Boston where Geoghan was held in protective custody and had only limited contact with other prisoners.

My first thought when reading how organized the slaying was, and how he did wrestling-type moves on the still-warm body was, "I wonder if he got paid extra for that?"  Not that any major media source would ever post news about a prison murder being arranged for money anyway.

January 5, 2003

Interesting article about prisons in Finland.  They hardly have any, their rate of incarceration is very low, and the prisons they do have are like hotels with furniture, privacy, no clanging gates or bars, and unarmed guards.

Thirty years ago, Finland had a rigid model, inherited from neighboring Russia, and one of the highest rates of imprisonment in Europe. But then academics provoked a thoroughgoing rethinking of penal policy, with their argument that it ought to reflect the region's liberal theories of social organization.

"Finnish criminal policy is exceptionally expert-oriented," said Tapio Lappi-Seppala, director of the National Research Institute of Legal Policy. "We believe in the moral-creating and value-shaping effect of punishment instead of punishment as retribution."

As a result there is almost no violent crime in the country, and they spend a fraction what the US and other "law and order" countries do on prisons.

According to the Ministry of Justice in Helsinki, there are a little more than 2,700 prisoners in Finland, a country of 5.2 million people, or 52 for every 100,000 inhabitants. Ministry figures show the comparable rate is 702 per 100,000 in the United States, 664 in Russia and 131 in Portugal, the highest in the European Union.

Of course that would never work in the US.  And our current system is working so well already, what with ever-increasing prison construction and tax payer cost, permanent inmate overcrowding that makes prison a sort of career criminal training center, and zero job training or counseling to cut down on recidivism.  Why would we want to ever make any changes?

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.