Most people on their way to prison believe that they have nothing to worry about. The violence inside the prison is far worse than in the community that they came from. Still their belief is that the prison guards are there to protect them. The truth is that the correctional officers are far outnumbered by inmates. The Officers are trained to first protect themselves in any conflict, then radio for help. When a disturbance breaks out a lot can happen before the squad that breaks up fights gets there, including death.
The important thing for children to realize is, the inmates that are already in prison feel that they have nothing to lose. They are already in prison for something else. Their attitude is "What are they going to do, take away my birthday?" Their freedom has already been taken away, so they adapt to prison life and try to make the prison their own. Most have convinced themselves so hard that they even tell the prison guards that this is their home and that they just spend 8 hours a day here. It is that attitude that makes them very dangerous.
The story below is true and happens in prisons across this country without anyone knowing about it, as there is no press coverage.
Every week inmates are allowed to place an order through the canteen, the items available range from prison to prison but basically are all the same. Items include things like potato chips, kool-aid, soda, hygiene products, and all types of food products.
During canteen pick-up an inmate picked up his order and started walking back to his room. A young gangbanger got his attention and said to him "Hey, I see you have my chips in your bag." To which he responded, "No, your chips are still up at the canteen store."
The gangbanger felt he was disrespected in front of his other gangbanging brothers, went into his room, dropped a small can of Chili (purchased from the canteen) into a sock and went to the other inmates room and beat him with this crudely made weapon. By the time staff had gotten the situation under control, two lives had dramatically changed over a bag of potato chips that cost $0.59.
The guy that got beat was 38 years old serving a 4 year sentence for writing bad checks. He was due for release in less than 18 months from the date of this incident.
The gangbanger was 21 years old serving a 5 year sentence for dealing drugs. He was due for release in approximately 30 months.
The 38 year old's sentence was changed from 4 years to a death sentence, as ever since the incident he has been in a coma with no brain activity. He was left a vegetable
The gangbanger's sentence was changed to 60 years, thus setting his path to adjusting to his new home.
Weapons are given to the inmates by the prison.
Every day inmates are processed through the intake system. During that time in some prisons the inmate is given a padlock to secure his/her items. They are also issued clothes, most importantly the other half of the weapon, socks. Any heavy item can be placed inside of these socks and thus you have a weapon that can cause serious injury, as the story above shows.
There are weapons everywhere, there is no way around it. Prison officials do everything they can to make the prison safe, however the inmates have nothing but time and they sue the prisons anytime things are taken away from them. They have law libraries available to them and some inmates spend all their time in there constantly suing the prison. One of the suits involved sports equipment.
The prisons around the country all have recreation fields and gyms to keep the inmates occupied. Most have softball fields, thus softball bats. In a privately run facility, in an undisclosed location, an inmate took a aluminum softball bat and proceeded to walk up to another inmate whom was at home plate playing softball. The inmate swung the bat at the batter and hit him in the back of the head, and continued to beat him into a coma.
Inmates have nothing but time to think and construct weapons
Inmates, aside from their stupidly of crossing onto the criminal side of life, are very intelligent. They spend their time thinking of how to scam this person, or how they can construct this weapon or make this tool to use in an escape attempt. If they used just half of their intelligence while they were in their respective communities, they would have been very successful members of their communities.
Inmates will make weapons out of anything they can find, even something as simple as a toothbrush.
Jeffrey Dahmer and Jesse Anderson were killed in a Wisconsin State prison when Christopher Scarver used a piece of metal off of a weight machine in the gym. At the time of the murders there were only the three inmates being supervised by one correctional officer. The incident happened so fast that the supervising officer didn't even know that it had happened. Scarver beat Dahmer to death in the inmate locker room on one end of the gym, then walked past the occupied security booth, carrying his weapon to the other side of the gym where Anderson was in the staff bathroom doing his cleaning duties. Scarver beat Anderson to death, then walked back to the weight room to return his weapon to the weight machine, then walked out of the gym and back to his housing unit.
There are weapons everywhere, and the staff are not there to protect you. If someone wants you dead, it can and will happen.
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