![]() By 1987, the federal system had 47 prisons, a staff of 13,000 and 44,000 convicts, and Leavenworth, called the Hot House because of the furnace-like Kansas summers, was the elite spot (along with Marion, Ill.) because it got the toughest inmates and the toughest guards.įrom 1958 to 1975, the system dedicated itself to a belief in rehabilitation of the inmates through a theory that saw criminal behavior as a sickness. Its first inmate was a Native American named John Grindstone (who also became the first corpse in the prison’s Mount Hope cemetery). “Hot House” is a book that sucks one deep into the darkness. He would have killed him by a technique called “run the gears.” “You slam a shank into his chest,” the man explained, “and pull up and over and down and over, just like shifting gears in a car.” Earley notes, “It is difficult to peer into such blackness without eventually being sucked inside.” Later, the man explained that, yes, he would have killed his neighbor for “disrespecting” him if the noise had continued. The convict, a murderer, got up, plucked a knife from a hiding place, excused himself and walked next door. One night he was talking to a convict when the singing of Hank Williams Jr. Sometimes he did not enjoy this new understanding. He had a simple idea: “By observing the routine, rather than the aberrant events in the prison, I hoped to understand the inmates, the men who guarded them, the institution itself.” ![]() ![]() This book is by a reporter, and gives the reader reporting at its very finest.Įarley came and went in prison from July, 1987, until July, 1989, with the complete freedom, day or night, to talk to anyone. Before we had schools of journalism, there was a straightforward task called reporting that took you where you had not been, and told you what you had not known. His education ended at age 11 and except for a few months on the street, he has spent his entire life since age 15 in prison.īowles and half a dozen other characters are the vehicles that Pete Earley uses in “Hot House” to show us the world of Leavenworth. and Viola Hunter, an elderly couple, took them hostage and a few miles from their home shot them in the head and left them dead in a field. Nine years later he got a four-hour pass to visit a girlfriend, escaped, broke into the home of Earl C. He was 25 years old and given life for murdering the cop. He got out after six years in 1965, immediately began a crime spree, held more than six people hostage, then kidnaped a family, and finally killed an Oregon policeman. He got out after two years, within two months stole a car, was jailed in Oregon, escaped twice, and was sentenced to eight years in prison. He got out after nine months, and within four weeks shot a boy and got four years in the federal youth facility at Englewood, Colo. Bowles was born in Lubbock, Tex., in 1940 and was sent to the Texas reformatory at age 15.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |