I was reading an article about Tamms, a maximum security prison in Illinois, and a convict named Jerico Smalley. This isn't going to be one of those tales of the wrongly convicted guy who spent half a lifetime in the can, wrongly convicted. Smalley was convicted back in the 70's of blowing a cab drivers leg half off during the commission of a robbery. The cabbie survived, but he lost his leg.
Smalley has spent the last 12 years of his bit in supermax, in a SHU program. That means 23 hour lock down, never leave your cell minus chains. I don't know about Tamms specifically, but most solitary confinement units, the shower is either in your cell, or they roll it in front of your door.
The article reported claims by mental health professionals that such confinement makes the inmate go crazy. Since Smalley earned his stint in the SHU by assaulting guards, inmates, and anyone else within his reach, it's a little tough to find much sympathy for him. He has gassed guards several times. Being gassed means you get piss and shit thrown in your face. Gassing someone will generally get you beat everywhere including the bottoms of your feet, and given the disease potential, I'd say that's a fair call.
Tommy Silverstein is another convict who has been in solitary confinement for decades. Silverstein committed 4 murders while in prison, one of those was a guard. Silverstein is on a no human contact order. Guards don't speak to him other than to give him instruction. Here is a good article on Silverstein. Reporters and bleeding hearts will tell you the system is to blame for the behavior of these guys. The irony is, that the same folks defending the Silversteins and Smalleys of the penal system, don't have to deal with them on a daily basis, and if they did, they would probably be walking around wiping poop soup out of their eyes. Guards and convicts alike will tell you that prison is dangerous enough without having a Hannibal Lecter running around stabbing people in the face.
I knew guys in the joint who passed their time by raising hell. They constantly filed lawsuits, complaints, went on hunger strikes, flushed their sheets down the toilet flooding their cells, and generally made their own lives miserable in the process. They would disappear for a week, or three, and come out of the hole ready to do battle again. But they knew their limits, they pushed the envelop, but only so far. They weren't crazy, just bored or belligerent. The prison guards who read this blog, at least two that I know of, will agree with me, I'm sure.
There is a new type of convict coming to our federal prisons, Terrorists. Most of these Jihad douche bags will end up at ADX Florence in Colorado. This link will take you to a page full of links and articles on the terrorists who are already calling Florence home. I'm still working my way through it all. There is some good stuff to be found there, if this type of thing interests you. I've always been of the opinion that convicted terrorists would be well under control inside the confines of ADX. Now I'm not so sure. So give this stuff a look if you are so inclined, I'll be back tomorrow with a new prison post. Because it's Prison Week here at Midtown Miscreant.
Tamms is the end of the line here in Ilinois. LOTS of mf's have gone flip city in there. The state uses it for so-called "gang leaders", and almost all of them are on 23 hour lockdown.
ReplyDeleteTommy Silverstein, well, he ain't 'zactly Prince Charming, but if it wan't for the B.G.F. & la Eme, there wouldn't be an A/B. He's that worst of the worst, a White Man that wouldn't lay down for the system.
Racist, eh?
Sure...go on inside, specially a state joint, and see how you feel IF you get out. See that boy over there brainding the nice man's hair? That ain't all he's doing to pull his three hots and a cot.
The A/B wad a foregone conclusion when it was decided that all prisons should be integrated, and that prisoners should be forced to live on moxed blocks.
He may have taken care of business, but I wouldn't have any trepidation about being his cellie.
Dan / Chicago
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if someone chucked shit in my face, they wouldn't have to worry about being in solitary because I would have KILLED THEM.
ReplyDeleteThe prisoners at Gitmo aren't gonna like their new digs. Breaks my heart.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Brian Nelson, Inmate Number N31449 in I.D.O.C., also in Tamms, most likely for life. He is totally gone, can't even communicate anymore...real threat to society.
ReplyDeleteAnd just for the record, the hacks like to throw in the bit about "gassing" whenever they are justifying the way they treat cons, but Silverstein has never even been accused of it, let alone disciplined for it.
So many ways for a hack to do a con dirt, rarely a chance for any payback. Course, you can't excuse Silversteins actions in taking out the hack, but I can sure nuff understand what led to them.
Dan / Chicago
Umm...the point of the article is that throwing feces and urine is a very clear sign of mental illness.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to put people in solitary for over a decade for expresing symptoms of their untreated mental illnesses, well...it is your blog. But, it costs an astronomical amount (higher taxes) and only makes things worse for them, and correctional staff, to exacerbate instead of treat mental illnesses. That is the point of that article, which even quotes a former warden of a supermax saying the same thing. Many of these guys will return to society...so this only harms public safety. Cruelty may be fun for you and your readers, but it makes bad public policy.
See this article for more details on what is done to the mentally ill prisoners at Tamms:
http://www.bnd.com/600
Gassing isnt a sign of mental illness. Playing with your own shit, maybe. Brewing up a shit and piss cocktail and waiting for the perfect time to throw it in someones face is the exact opposite of being mentally ill. It shows thought, planning and a whole lot of other normal functions. Nothing worse than some mental health professional, who never lived a day in the life, who never did time, or committed crime, trying to explain away behavior through text books and ink blots. I've got 5 years on the inside, some guys are just bad actors, full of hate. That aint mental illness. You can either do your time, or let it do you.
ReplyDeleteAs for Silverstein, or any of the worst, there comes a point when the only recourse is to isolate them or kill them. I'm not saying convicts should buddy hustle the CO's, but I never had issues with any of them that warranted premeditated murder or slinging shit bombs.
Nice blog and link to the Silverstein article. Seems like you have a theme going ... some people are beyond rehabilitation and deserve whatever comes there way. You got some heat for the pedophile, so now your hawking even worse bad boys for cover.
ReplyDeleteNot exactly a rational approach, but given your background, it seems to me that you are making a career out of pointing out how much worse other criminals are than, I guess, people like you?
Mental illness doesn't equal batshit crazy. Plenty of psychopaths are mentally ill and capable of exquisite planning...you are over your depth in the whole area of mental illness and criminal behavior. But playing fast and loose in this area allows you to avoid facing the fallacy of your ill-reasoned and highly emotional judgements on other criminals who apparently don't deserve legal protections and due process once they cross a certain "MM" line.
At some point, you need to examine yourself and decide to move forward in a positive manner. So, how smart are you? Smart enough to move yourself to a better life?
Anyway, I admire that you allow apparently uncesnsored comments, even those that are disagreeable.
Anon
ReplyDeleteYou might want to take the time to read my Prison for Dummies series, and the others in the sidebar. I write about crime and criminals because it's the one thing I know better than most, having spent half my life being one. It's also what I choose to write about, so I'm not sure why I would "Move On" from the subject.
You tend to paint my statements with a wider brush than is called for. I was talking about mental illness in reference to gassing. One of the anony commenters equated gassing to a crazy person playing with their own feces. While some inmates who gas guards might be crazy, the act isn't exclusive to crazy people. It's more often carried out with deliberation and a sane mind. Most of the people in prisons, myself included, would show anti social/ sociopathic tendencies given DSM-IV testing. There's no treatment for sociopathic tendencies. That's how we are able to become criminals. That doesn't make one crazy or mentally ill in a treatable sense. I'll try to stay down here in the shallow end. So as not to get in over my head. Thanks for setting me on the straight and narrow. Next week is recipe and macrame week, be sure not to miss it.
As one of the "hacks" who has had the opportunity to wear the poop sandwich, I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with MM and disagree with most of your bleeding heart responders. 99% of the offenders who play in their feces or throw them at the officers are not mentally ill to any great extent. They are just a**holes. I have dealt with a great many mentally ill offenders. I have dealt with a great many a**holes. They do that to get at us. No other reason. Maybe if they would have thrown poop at their parents for raising them wrong I wouldn't be having this problem. To those who think isolation and prison is overly cruel, I have a list of poor souls for you to tend to. I'll send them to your house. Let's see how you handle them.
ReplyDeleteIsolation is a tool, and it has it's place. Just not for 20+ years!
ReplyDeleteThe whole problem with Tamms is it creates a vicious cycle where once they get into the facility they can't ever get out, and this is not what the place was designed to do. They are torturing the mentally ill there thats a fact. They would be better off just killing them out right.It would be better for the inmates and the guards who also suffer mentally from what they have to do to others on a daily basis.Then when their shifts over they bring their filthy out into the community and beat their wives and children and others in the community.They drink to escape and drive and endanger others in the community.They go into bars and think they can treat others like they treat the inmates they are trained to torturer.Read up on Nazi guards in concentration camps in WW2 and members of the SS death squads. Many of them suffered from mental problems because of the work they where ordered to perform. They had to be rotated out every two weeks. This is why I say everyone would be better off if they just killed these human trash to start with.
ReplyDelete