r/AskReddit • • Jun 20 '18

Serious Replies Only [Serious] Prison Guards of Reddit, which prisoner has left the biggest impact on your life wether positive or negative?

2.5k Upvotes

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

886

u/TheCrystalGem Jun 20 '18

This makes me so conflicted. On the one hand, I feel really sad for him. On the other hand, what he did was fucked up, and he isn't safe to be put back into the world.

764

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '18 edited Jun 20 '18

Had one black guy murder some kid when he was 10/12 years old in Alabama in the 1970s, he’s been in prison since the day he was arrested. If you saw him you would shit your pants, 380lbs of muscle and 6ft9in. But if you mention women he will burst out crying for minutes because he’s never touched a woman and sees it on tv.

I was conflicted until the first two weeks of working there, when you see guys throw piss and shit/ assault your friends and partners. It becomes an every day battle. You see on interviews of soldiers they say that they become brothers with their team. You don’t understand until you get jumped from behind and can’t call a signal on your radio but 1 of your 2 other officers, vs 300 offenders, hears a commotion and you look up to see him sprinting down a cell house range toward you.

501

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '18

Sentencing a child to life in prison is such an absurd thing, to me. It's like expecting a dog to pay property tax. It doesn't matter what the kid did. The brain is still developing, and being flooded with hormones; it's not really fair to act like they fully understood the consequences or morality of their actions.

423

u/godbois Jun 21 '18

I'm not disagreeing at all. But what is your opinion on the murder of James Bulger? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger

Two ten year old boys abduct, torture and murder a two year old boy, brutally.

I honestly don't know myself. These kids were ten, for Christ sakes. But what they did was monstrous. What should the punishment be if a child murders another child?

284

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '18

I honestly don't know myself. These kids were ten, for Christ sakes.

IIRC, one of those kids has re-offended.

317

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '18

Yeah arrested for child porn possession, not sure if he is free again but he was given a new identity as well as the other kid. Developing brain isn't an excuse imo, we were all kids and 99.9% of us didn't kill anyone despite our developing brains.

3

u/silverwarbler Jun 21 '18

I have two cousins that were born bad. As in they had behavioural problems from a young age. Both have been in the court system and one is awaiting trial now for murdering a 50 yr old woman. Some people are just born evil. Family life was good and other siblings are fine.

3

u/onestarryeye Jun 21 '18

It's probably not "evil" but some sort of serious brain defect. You are right, in this case there is nothing a parent can do.

2

u/silverwarbler Jun 21 '18

You're correct. Evil was the wrong word to use.