Potent quotables
Were they born bad or did they become bad because of the childhood abuses inflicted on them, including the savagery each faced as youngsters and later as adults inside our jails and prisons? Was their isolation necessary or was it cruel? Was it possible for either man to reinvent and rehabilitate himself while in prison—or were such hopes naïve?
It had proven difficult to manage him if there was nothing he valued that could be taken away.
Despite Judge Pierson’s warning that the court would be watching her to ensure that she didn’t mistreat the boy, no one from child protective services ever bothered to check on him.
And they were saying he was just doing his job maintaining prisoners, as if he were a saint because he put on a badge. It wasn’t like that at all. He got off on making guys’ lives miserable, showing how tough he was.
It is hard to describe the horror I experienced during this construction process. As they built new walls around me, it felt like I was being buried alive.
Hey, maybe it’s not us but our brutal prison system fucking up everyone.
Someday most of us finally get out of this hell, and even a rational dog after getting kicked around year after year attacks when his cage door is finally opened.”
Despite your diligence, sincerity and, I believe best intentions, there are parts of this hellhole that only those who have experienced it will ever be able to describe.
What I wanted people to understand was that these were not madmen, they were not natural-born killers. They were made this way by a society that didn’t really care about them as children.
Anyone with any kind of conscience should have looked at that and said, ‘That’s just not how we should be doing things.’”