To protect those involved, I will be using intentionally vague information about people as well as the places and be outright misleading about certain facts. In fact, for my sake, treat this as a work of fiction. Let's call it “fiction”
I was incarcerated when I was 17 and served 14 years of a 15 year sentence. I have no word of mouth prison stories nor are the things I speak on the context of something I read. They are the things I witnessed and personally participated in. Where I came up we had a very specific culture and a part of that involved how we dealt with child abusers. Especially pedophiles.
There's no greater evil than the kind that targets children. I've been seeing a lot of content recently about lenient laws in regard to pedophiles and child abusers in general. Apparently there are places where the consequences they face are minor as their state hands down light sentences and then follows up by actually protecting them once they are in prison. This is strange to me in ways I'm afraid I can not express here because it's not what I know. Ours were fed to us.
I do not know those places and I won’t speak for them. However I do know mine and in my house, these little monsters were eaten by bigger ones. Unlike out here, there was no debate. There was no conflict of conscious. We had a consensus that the sentence the state gave them was the least of their concerns. The law wasn't the consequences of their actions, we were.
In my home your crime placed you somewhere along the food chain on day one. For most you moved up or down from there based on how you did your time. The only exception to this were child abusers who walked in at the very bottom and never had any hope of changing that. Yes, we were all criminals in there, however we were also most of us father's. Violent, monstrous ones. We aimed to harm them and were very good at this.
Diaper snipers, Pedo Pete's, Chester's, we had plenty of names for these things. Make no mistake, I’m using the term 'things' intentionally. While we had no interest or ignored the ones who weren't wired right, mentally deficient in some way, the rest were not human beings, they were property. They were not a person, they were a burden or a monetary source. Because the fellas, (those of us wired into the prison) had access to records, we knew who they were before they even got there. We'd stand at the window above with the manila folders while matching mug shots to the guys arriving. Almost giddy when we'd spot it getting off the bus. 'Dibs' was not an uncommon thing to hear a fella call out.
This isn't a story about just beating and killing child abusers. Though that happened, it wasn't the normal course of events that followed. As I mentioned, it was part of the culture. As criminals, we were creative, industrious and most of all opportunistic.
The most common event on day one was an unofficial auction. Depending on who was involved, their value could be based on their appearance, age, or severity of crime. But mostly it was based on how much money they received on their books while in the county jail and how frequently they got it. A pedo with people on the outside sending them money was a treasure indeed. The abuser didn't even know we had noticed it yet, let alone were debating on what it was worth and what was to be done. There were as many ways for this to play out as there were ideas in our aggressive imaginations. A pedophile actually had a market value and we needed to figure that out first. The guards unofficial position was that we not kill them to avoid paperwork and larger repercussions. We didn't fight that. Even with those things you'd get a murder charge. So we made sure the guards didn't have to get involved. Beyond that we had no other limits. It still happened, killing them, however it was often the result of a fit of anger rather than a planned action. It was actually uncommon. Death was more often the result of them taking their own life. No one inside was ever shocked when that happened but rather we were surprised by how long it took. It would even be a spectator event if you were suspicious they were close. Like a live concert for Convicts as we took bets on how'd they do it.
However, it usually took a while for the weight of their new life to push them that far if at all. Before that they experienced Tax Day. That was when one of the fellas approached them for the first time. Everyone had their own way doing this however everyone used a combination of mild to moderate violence to establish they can, followed by an explanation of how things would be from now on.
For example, if I'm free to make things up, you'd storm into his cell hard and fast. Attacking him like a rabid dog. Then standing over him once he submits to the harm you just inflicted you explain, "You're alive because I fucking allow you to be bitch, now say it" make sure he does, always make them repeat the rules back to you, and hurt him if he hesitates. Then walk him to the cell door gripping the nape of his neck to show him how many men are standing around watching. "Keep my name out your mouth while you thinking telling might save you." Point to the guards, "I pay their fucking bills. Anyone you jack your jaw to is going to bring you to me" You make them understand that they have no options and no way out. They will own nothing, do nothing and be nothing. "I'm going to cut your fucking lower lip off if I so much as catch your creep ass standing up to take a piss. You'll sit the way bitches sit". Then you get to reason it's called Tax Day. "You owe me (insert whatever amount you're going to charge) a month to breathe out your mouth instead of your neck. You ever come up short I'm selling that wolf pussy of yours to one of them AIDS havin fuck boys. Now say it back like you're excited"
That, of course, is just something I may have heard said or invented entirely.
They're property. Nothing more. They'd hide and move drugs, do laundry, spend their money at the commissary on the shopping lists you'd give them and that was a mild day. I've seen them literally stood on tables and auctioned off and used to call bets at the poker table. Maybe I didn't let that man call because my AM/FM radio was worth more than his punk. If they stepped out of line they'd be rented out to the rapists or those guys could just come make their owner an offer. I watched one have his nostril slit because he made eye contact when asking for a cigarette. And few things in this world are as funny as making a couple of pedo's fight each other because the fellas are bored. Every moment of their existence is walking on eggshells over razor blades on thin ice. Not that anyone needed an excuse to hurt them or an explanation when they did. Sometimes your team lost the game and punching a pedophile is the only logical way to emotionally process that.
I've seen them tell a guard and be escorted to a cell with the fellas waiting in it instead of to safety. If you spotted one trying to use the phone without its owner you'd step in and prevent that. People helping people. I've witnessed boiling baby oil thrown in one's face when he had the nerve to say his daughter seduced him. I remember one had to burst his own eardrum with a peice of a TV antenna because he couldn't repeat instructions back. I could go on and on. Sliced, burned, bruised you name it. It's all fair game. Part of a Convicts status at times was influenced by how cruel you could be while maintaining control and an income flow. Ballers would have a 'stable of them hoes'. It was also not uncommon for men to put tag-tattoos on their faces the way a rancher would brand his cattle. Properly ownership is the cornerstone of our society after all.
Even the Chester's who managed to get into protective custody had almost no reprieve. They had to do the same chow hall march as anyone else and eat food cooked by Convicts. One can only imagine the possibilities. Plus PC was temporary at best and they found themselves in gen pop with the rest of us.
I suppose the moral of this “fictional” story is that there is a form justice waiting for these things even if it's not the way the law intended to provide it. It's barbaric and wrong in different ways yet it is what's available. There is a very real sense of right and wrong even in Hell. I find it disappointing that prisoners agree that these things are the worst of the worst while people out here are starting to defend it as being an ‘identity’.
It's not right, its not a solution, it simply is. There are no hero's or good guys. Just monster's doing what monsters do. To those who suffered by these child abusers, if the law doesn't help you, I hope a look inside what follows does. You may not feel the courts gave you justice however Convicts likely gave you vengeance.
This gives me, a mother with a daughter that was SA'd by an ex-husband a little bit of comfort. He got a light sentence but I'm hoping that something like this happened while he was inside. I know that seems cruel but no one really understands how it completely damages a child's life. She will never be the same carefree little girl that she was before. Thankfully she is now grown up and has forgiven me for bringing him into her life.
There was a day, many many years ago, when I would have read this and cheered. I would have been screaming THANK GOD SOMEONE F*CKING DID SOMETHING!
Ahhh, but as the years passed and the pain of what happened to me lessened, the vengeance I once sought no longer haunts me. BUT now, with the insanity of people wanting to normalize this behavior, I'll admit that I'm revisiting my compassion and empathy. Deep down, there's still a part of me that cheered reading this.