7 votes

A boy among men: What happens when you throw a teenager into an adult prison? Guess.

3 comments

  1. Thrabalen
    Link
    American prisons are criminal distillation facilities. You send people in, and they boil away that which does not make a better criminal. It's a self-perpetuating, self-feeding beast.

    American prisons are criminal distillation facilities. You send people in, and they boil away that which does not make a better criminal. It's a self-perpetuating, self-feeding beast.

    7 votes
  2. Kuromantis
    Link
    Basically a long article about a dude who committed some theft at 17 and was sent to an adult prison and suffered several years of oral and other types of rape and being called the N-word and...

    Basically a long article about a dude who committed some theft at 17 and was sent to an adult prison and suffered several years of oral and other types of rape and being called the N-word and other harassing letters, to the point of his sexuality being ruined by PTSD-like trauma. It also talks about "John Doe" 's life story, PREA (prison rape law), prison culture and other things.

    Three years ago, the young man who would later be known as John Doe 1 shuffled into the Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan. The town of 11,000 residents, which sits in the remote center of the state, houses five prisons, and over the years, it has earned the nickname “I Own Ya.” John, who was 17, had already gotten over the initial fear of going to an adult prison—he had spent several months at a county jail near Detroit and an intake facility in Jackson—but he also knew he would be spending longer at this lonely outpost, a minimum of three years for a couple of home invasions.

    It was around this time that the letters started sliding under his cell door. John would get a lot of letters from other prisoners over the next few months, and while they were not always explicit, some certainly were. “You are one sexy nigger,” one read. “You need a white man to show you how to act...When the opportunity comes I want to sneak in your house and hit that.” Another letter said he had a “fan club.”

    One night after the last count before bed, John says, his cellmate suddenly attacked him, pulling down both of their pants and wrestling him onto the bottom bunk.

    John says he was raped several more times by both his cellmate and strangers. He was forced to perform oral sex, and he still remembers brushing his teeth twice to get the taste out of his mouth. He never told medical staff about his anal bleeding because he felt embarrassed, though because of a foot injury he was able to get painkillers.

    “It got easier because I could go away in my mind.” Eventually, John says, he was raped so many times he lost count.

    In interviews, he said he has never had consensual sex with a man, though during his time in prison, he's agreed to do things “short of” sex, such as touching and kissing—things he said he felt he had to do to protect himself from further violent rapes. When asked about his sexual preferences, he called himself heterosexual but added, “Now I don't feel a desire for either sex.” He is not sure whether he'll ever be able to resume relationships with women. “It's debatable.”

    5 votes
  3. Merry
    Link
    There was a very interesting Criminal podcast episode about a kid who was sentenced for life without parole, which was pretty widespread at one point:...

    There was a very interesting Criminal podcast episode about a kid who was sentenced for life without parole, which was pretty widespread at one point:

    https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-170-ian-manuel-7-30-21

    “The phone rang and rang and a lady picked up on the other end and I still remember the operator saying, ‘You have a collect call from Ian for Debbie. Will you accept the charges?’ And I remember Debbie saying, ‘Yes, I accept.’ And I just remember blurting out, ‘Ms. Baigrie, I just called to wish you and your family a merry Christmas and to apologize for shooting you.'”

    At 14 years old, Ian Manuel was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and spent an estimated 18 years in solitary confinement. Today, he tells his story.

    5 votes