compiled by Patrick H. Moore
For most of us, going to jail or prison is a terrifying experience. In mere minutes, you go from being an ordinary free American citizen to being cast in with the “convicts,” whoever they are. Once the iron door clangs shut behind you, you are on your own and you have no choice but to stick up for yourself, which in some cases means fighting for your life.
Karl Smallwood of ListVerse has compiled the following list of what he calls ”the ten most horrifying things that have happened to people behind bars” (for the sake of brevity, I have sharpened and shortened some of Mr. Smallwood’s entries):
Skinned for Beauty Products
In China, once a convict is executed, his or her debt to society is still not entirely paid. We’ve all heard stories about organs being harvested from executed criminals—which is at least somewhat justifiable, since harvesting organs could mean saving lives. It’s much tougher to justify skinning the corpses of the recently executed for skin cream and cosmetics. Which is exactly what a Chinese cosmetic company has been accused of doing. The company in question basically shrugged it off, saying that it was no big deal. Well, yeah, but imagine if that was someone in your family, and when you went to reclaim your loved one’s body you discovered that it had been skinned.
Forced Psychedelic Trips
LSD is a powerful mind-altering hallucinogen. Many people have, of course, tried it of their own accord. But if you happened to be in prison during the days of the exhaustive LSD experimentation, when Sidney Gottlieb was running MK Ultra for the CIA, you could have been force-fed dangerous amounts of the drug without your knowledge, purely to satisfy the curiosity of the American government about what exactly it would do to you. MK Ultra was a controversial and highly secretive government program which basically revolved around trying to control peoples’ minds. For the LSD-doping part of the experiment, the people chosen were intentionally those “who could not fight back”—people like prisoners and mental patients. In one case, a mental patient was reportedly dosed with LSD for 174 days in a row. Apparently, very few people care what happens to you if you are in prison or a mental institution.
Blood Swaps
In a rather unusual experiment, Louis Boy, a criminal at Sing Sing prison who was already on death row, allowed himself to be hooked up to a machine alongside a small girl suffering from cancer, and had her blood filtered through his own body. Though the experiment didn’t work, Louis reportedly earned his freedom. Which demonstrates that if you have a man in prison with nothing to lose, you can typically do whatever crazy experiments you want to him without consequence.
Cancer Injections
Scientists have been trying to cure cancer for decades—and in 1956, scientists and doctors from the Sloan Kettering Institute had a brilliant idea: inject inmates with cancer, and see what happens. Now, it’s important to note that the inmates openly volunteered for the project — but it’s equally important to note that the actual scientific merit of the entire experiment was called into question, since all it really proved was that injecting people with cancer is a bad idea. Not that the inmates were around to complain . . .
Broomstick Sodomy
As everyone knows sodomy is basically a normal part of prison life. Prison rape jokes are so common, they’ve gone beyond the point of being edgy or funny. So the warning that someone may forcibly try and put something inside you in prison isn’t exactly news to most of the people reading this. What could well be news, however, is the fact that the perpetrator of the sodomy may actually be a police officer. In what is known as one of the most harrowing examples of police brutality in recent times, officer Charles Schwarz was accused of taking part in the sodomy of a Haitian immigrant named Abner Louima. The act was carried out with a broomstick, and caused the victim severe internal injuries. Abner’s crime? The officer was under the impression that Abner had punched him—a belief that was later proven to be unfounded.
Being Beaten Beyond Recognition
In Afghanistan, there have been many reports about the alleged abuse some prisoners have suffered at the hands of Western soldiers. The most terrifying thing is just how difficult such cases are to bring to trial, or indeed how unlikely it is that someone will eventually be held accountable. One young Afghan taxi driver was hung up by his shackles and deprived of both food and water for days. The coroner, when asked to comment on the damage the prisoner sustained, stated that his body looked like it had been run over by a bus.
Fight Clubs (Registration Compulsory)
Prison isn’t exactly an experience you can just glide through. You have to watch your back constantly. In one Pennsylvania prison, inmates also had to contend with guards who’d apparently watched The Shawshank Redemption just a few too many times. Guards would regularly taunt, beat, and rape the prisoners. But arguably their worst crime involved forcing inmates to fight each other for their own amusement, as part of a prisoner fight club. Doctors involved in the case noted that they’d seen everything from missing teeth to shattered knuckles as a result of these fights.
Nutraloaf
Though perhaps not the worst prison abuse, the reaction of hardened criminals to Nutraloaf is astounding. It’s everything their body needs to survive — served in “loaf” form.The loaf is so disgustingly bad that prisoners, when given the choice between a week of Nutraloaf meals and week of solitary confinement, will generally pick solitary. It’s just that bad — so bad, in fact, that it should be considered cruel and unusual punishment.
White Noise Torture
White noise—for those of you who are too young to remember CRT televisions and non-digital radio — was what you’d get if you didn’t tune your device to the correct channel properly. Most would agree that it’s one of the most annoying noises in the entire world. Many studies have been undertaken into exactly what effect white noise has on the human body. When British soldiers stationed in Ireland had to find a way to break prisoners, white noise along with beating and sleep deprivation seemed to do the trick. Because if there’s one thing worse than being beaten by your captors, it’s a constant stream of noise being blasted into your eardrums while you’re trying to sleep.
Being Left to Die
Police officers are a very tight-knit group, who will defend and back each other up no matter what. This can sometimes leads to what is commonly known as the “blue wall of silence,” which can in turn give rise to cases like Adolph Archie. Adolph was a career criminal who shot and killed a police officer in New Orleans. Now obviously this was a dumb move on Archie’s part. He was in severe need of medical aid (he’d been shot in the arm) and was taken to the local police station instead of the hospital. A few hours later, he was dead. An autopsy report revealed that he’d died of a fall, which for some reason had caused all of his teeth to be shattered, his skull to be fractured in several places, and severe hemorrhaging to afflict his testicles. A second, independent report revealed that Archie had actually been beaten to death by an angry mob of police officers.Of course, it’s hard to feel sorry for a known police-killer. But, these officers are the same men that are supposed to uphold the law — and not one of them stood trial for the obvious murder of a suspect in their custody.