Inmate Profiles — Peter, Randy, and Wilbur
This is part of a series. For more please go to the Table of Contents.
These inmate profiles are the result of what I now regard as a failed project to interview as large a group of fellow sex offenders as possible and tell their stories. The idea of this was to offer these as cautionary tales to my “target audience” of other pedophiles not yet caught up in America’s criminal justice system in the hope tht you can learn something from the experiences of others.
The problem with this project was that I myself was trying to keep as low a profile as possible the whole time I was in prison, so I certainly wasn’t going to go around my dorm asking to interview other sex offenders. They would suspect my motives, wouldn’t want to talk any more than I did and I’d get exposed to every other inmate in the dorm.
As a result there are only three such “interviews” here, and they really aren’t interviews at all. They are the stories of a very small number of sex offenders I got to know well enough to know their stories without having to actually interview them.
Inmate Profile #1: Peter — “Don’t let anybody borrow your phone!”
Age: About 40
Race: White
Charge: Child pornography, 99 counts
Awaiting trial or plea — in county jail without bond for 5 months.
Peter had been in jail before on unrelated charges. Caught this time when co-workers immediately called the cops after finding child porn on his smart phone. In his possession were photos, videos, and shared files. He claimed not to have solicited the videos — “They just showed up in my inbox so I looked at them.” I didn’t believe this. Only by becoming a member of certain websites and sharing networks would the door to such material swing open. He certainly downloaded and hung on to it once he got hold of it.
Admitted to being aware of his pedophilia at an early age. Swore he never molested any children. Did I believe this? Said his wife was aware of his pedophilia and his child porn collection and allowed it. I don’t know why he would lie about this. Which would be more shocking, a lie like this or a woman who would not have thrown his sorry ass out?
He’d been in county jail for 5 months awaiting action on his case. That the FBI intervened to prevent him getting bond or bail tells you how much trouble he was in. Yet he was wildly optimistic about his chances of getting off with a light sentence — even probation! After all, he says, it was “just child porn” and he never molested any children. Alas, Peter! The two-by-four of reality will smack you upside the head soon enough!
Inmate Profile #2: Randy — “I’m a Little Teapot”
Age: 37
Race: Black
Charge: Child Molestation
Sentence: 15 years
I met Randy after checking in to the Box at Swift Annex Correctional Institution. We spent three weeks and two days in the same 8 x 10 cell. Under such circumstances you can get to know a guy pretty well.
Sexually molested beginning at age 6 by an uncle who threatened to kill him if he told, he did not tell the school psychologist assigned by his special education program, but later confided in his mother and an aunt at age 12. The family hushed it up and the uncle was never arrested. At age 14 he initiated a homosexual relationship with his cousin, age 13. They “messed around all the time” for a couple of years, then off and on after that. He’s been gay ever since, but also seems to be attracted to women, so I would describe him as bisexual.
Randy described himself as a “country nigga” from a small town in the rural south. Since he is of below average intelligence, he was tossed at an early age into the trash heap of his rural county’s “special education” program which barely taught him to read. His math skills are limited to unsteady addition and subtraction. Beyond two digits he was entirely lost. However, he had sharpened his reading skills while in prison, becoming an avid reader of Christian publications. When I met him he was reading a dictionary to learn new words — such as “pharmaceutical” and “politician”.
Arrested at age 24, charged with child molestation of a 5 year old girl cousin. He swore he didn’t do it and that the girl’s mom later recanted to his mom, yet they never did anything to help him stay out of prison. Sentenced to 15 years.
Randy could be cruel. After I realized that there was virtually no chance of my getting out of the Box by the date that my brother planned to visit me — no visitors while you are in the Box! — I lost it entirely, weeping like a baby. This made him agitated and angry. He berated and threatened me for over an hour. His tirade made me feel ten times worse, something I hadn’t thought possible!
Just a few days later he broke down crying over his own problems, and I offered as much sympathy as I could. I figured that I, the atheist, would be the real christian in the room. Besides, I was keenly aware that I would be spending a lot of time in close proximity to this guy. Might as well try to make it go as smoothly as possible!
This brings me to his religiosity, perhaps the worst aspect of his personality to be cooped up with. An extremely religious, fundamentalist christian, he spent hours yelling, cursing, and threatening me with hell and damnation after he found out I was an atheist. This was quite frightening. After a few days I had a brainstorm. I spent hours in my bunk meticulously planning and mentally rehearsing my assault. I knew I would get only one shot.
The next time he started in on me I suddenly fell to my knees and began praying loudly, “Oh God, please look down upon your servant Randy here, and help him understand what you meant by loving your neighbor as yourself! About treating other people right! About doing unto others as you would have them do unto you! (Look, even I know that’s not in the Bible, it’s in the Talmud, but I needed material.) …”
“God ain’t gonna listen to your fake-ass prayer!”
“…about how you told us that the one who is without sin should cast the first stone…”
“You’re going to Hell!”
“…Grant in him a clean heart oh God, and renew a right spirit…”
“Fuck you! What you know about God?”
On and on I went for about an hour, until he finally shut up — I had out-lasted him! Later, he prayed and — a miracle! God told him to apologize to me.
Randy became openly gay while in prison. He opened my eyes to a side of prison I found hard to believe at first — a gay world in which it seemed (to Randy at least) as though almost everyone in prison is gay or engaging in sex with other men. His regular reading material condemns homosexuality as sinful, leading to considerable inner turmoil. But then, turmoil has been part of his sexual identity since early childhood.
Although I believed his story of innocence regarding the crime which brought him to Swift Annex, it still begs the question — given his mental disability and sexual history, did he ever molest any other children back then and would he repeat it after he got out? The answers were probably yes and yes. He lacked the willpower to resist temptations put in front of him.
Randy didn’t seem to understand the true meaning of sex offender probation. Unrealistically optimistic, he dreamed of opening a restaurant, becoming a hair stylist, even joining the military. He believed it will “just take a court order” to allow him into the military. He did not understand that given both his charges and his mental handicaps, such a court order would be impossible — leading to disappointment, anger, violence, and another long prison sentence.
He didn’t understand why his family would not help him get an early release. My guess was that they dreaded having to live with and care for him whenever he did get out — but fully expect that when that day comes he won’t be out for long.
Repeatedly disciplined and fucked over by prison authorities — designated “high security” — he lived in 2 man cells for most of his 12 years inside. He also spent 4 ½ years in disciplinary “close custody”: 20 hour per day lock-down, being handcuffed, chained, and shackled during his 4 hours of “rec time”. Not to mention the 30+ months he’d spent in the box for disciplinary reasons.
Is this really how America treats its handicapped citizens? Destroying their lives from childhood? Consigning them as adults to the meat grinder of its prison system, to be abused, humiliated, punished, and driven insane by a system as absurd as any Franz Kafka novel? Yes, that is exactly how 21st Century America is treating Randy right now.
His treatment by prison officials left him mentally unstable. He had a very short temper and was likely to blow up over the smallest thing. He threw an hour-long temper tantrum when I told him about Disney Jr. & Nick Jr. He insisted that such TV channels could not exist because he didn’t see them in USA Today TV listings.
When I met him he had recently been forced by a guard, as a punishment, to pull his pants down and “moon” his entire dorm while singing “I’m a Little Teapot”! Imagine, you who have not been in prison, being forced to do that in the auditorium of your middle school. Did his life become a living hell? Small wonder that he checked in shortly thereafter, ending up as my cell mate.
Randy was due to be released from prison in about two years. Given that the most trivial matters can send him into paroxysms of anger, he was almost certain to lose his temper and do something to violate his ten years of sexual offender probation. Then he will be in for the rest of his life, to be abused, harassed, punished, and tormented by fellow inmates and prison authorities until it finally kills him.
Inmate Profile #3: Wilbur — “Thank heaven for little girls”
Age: 60
Race: White
Charge: Possession of child porn (10 videos)
Sentence: 3 years (no probation)
I met Wilbur shortly after arriving at Hayes Correctional Institution [see Essay: Making Friends in Prison]. He professed to be “interested in the female body” but admitted to a special interest in its pubescence. Claimed to be quite computer savvy and careful about scrubbing & wiping his hard drive meticulously — but still got caught with 17 videos that he got thru a peer-to-peer file sharing network. Got charged with ten.
He did not see his interest in pubescent girls as morally wrong and didn’t think it should be illegal. Took prodding for him to admit that the young girls in his videos were victims — rationalized it by saying they were “groomed” for this from early childhood. Talked about how “in Europe people are so much more tolerant; Americans are prudes.”
Wilbur saw himself as unfairly victimized. Talked quite openly about his charges and his “unfair treatment.” I told him to his face that I thought he was a self-pitying whiner. All this made him a lightening rod for abuse by other inmates & officers — in other words, he made himself his own self-fulfilling prophecy.
He had no place to go and no monetary (job) prospects upon release in about nine months. His family seemed to have abandoned him.Couldn’t find a place to live. Owned a home (in foreclosure) but it didn’t meet my state’s very harsh but not unusual sex offender registry distance & separation requirements.
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