Wow, Robert, what a great detailing and scene replay you just presented. I felt it, I saw it, I cringed...

Gotta go and check out that film now!

Pearl:

I'm proud of the film. Great actresses and my director, Mike Robe, was on-target with my words on every single page.

Added to my already bursting at the seams "Netflix" queue.

what an awful life she has...so sad

Suz:

She murdered four people in cold blood--that we know about. Feel bad for them and for their families. She should have been executed but she cut a deal with the DA and ratted out some of her friends. Basically, she's a sociopath.

I feel no sadness for this sicko. I have chills up my spine reading what you've written. I am freaked out to know that whack-jobs like her run around in this world.

And I'm wondering who pays for the 4 pack/day cigarette habit? Do we the taxpayers?

Stacey:

I'm not sure who pays for the cigs. But we do pay for cable TV and other pastimes; and please don't get too outraged.

If not for the narcotizing effects of TV and other past times there would be major riots and murders on a regular basis.

The prison I visited was just a petri dish for jealousy and sexual intimidation. It struck me as alot like high school––only this time without men. And in place of the awful tensions of the cheerleading squad, there is sexual slavery and homicide.

This is horrible but not surprising. When I visited Central Booking over the summer, during my internship at the DA's office, I got a glimpse of the people who seem to get arrested on a regular basis. Only a portion of them goes to prison for life, but from what I saw, I got a sense of what monstrous individuals they must be. It was an unforgettable experience. Maybe one day, I'll visit a real prison. *Shudder*. Hopefully, it'll only be for a day.

Irina:

Thanks for your comment. Unforgettable experience, yup that's what it was. Not all the women were as scary--though all the women I dealt with were murderers. There was one woman who touched me to the core. I found out only after I left the prison that she murdred her children.

Which, I guess, only shows what a great judge of character I am.

I used to think that I was a really good judge of character with sound instincts. I still think I'm fairly astute, but I've learned that first and second impressions don't really count for that much. You don't know a person until you KNOW them...and that takes time and experience....and even then.

On another note - I'm glad for you that you have writing as an outlet.

I have a cousin who is a CO -- you are correct Robert, some of the folks locked up are sociopaths. This is why I am an unapologetic advocate of capital punishment.

Mata Hari:

Hmm, interesting name. Not sure I should trust you.

Just kidding. Thanks for writing.

Anyway.

One lesson I've had to learn over and over again in terms of judging other people is: listen to my wife Karen. She has an unerring instinct for picking out the lunatics whom I invariably find to be fun and charming and "interesting."

Tamara:

The CO's, I discovered, were also prisoners, albeit in a different way. But prisoners they were, make no mistake about it.

At the beginning, the CO's were really worried that I was one of these bleeding heart Hollywood liberals. Once word got around that I was Conservative, and a memeber of the NRA, the CO's opened up to me. I've always wanted to do a series about their lives. But Hollywood finds criminals much more romantic.

Thanks so much for your story...... as talented as you are as a screenwriter, this never would have come through the story to us (the viewers).

You know what got me? Her age. 12. All I can think about are my two beautiful daughters (ages 14 and 10): what if they came in contact with someone like this, even by accident? This female (women, girl, gal, take your pick), is a one person wrecking crew of society in general.

I grieve for her horrible childhood or lack of it. But I am more concerned for those that were wrecked by her actions...... "they" could be me or my family (and most importantly, my children).

I'm sorry to be so selfish, but sometimes you have to think selfishly.

Dick Wolf (of "Law and Order," and "OZ" fame), has done a lot of fictional work about CO's, most often portraying them in a very good light... and sometimes not. A recurring leitmotif has been the dangers CO's and their families face on the OUTSIDE as the rising number of gang-affiliated prisoners has given them a network on the outside where they can threated their CO's families, etc. I have no idea what kind of person he is, but I would guess he'd be a receptive ear to a good script about CO's.

Rightmom:

Thanks for your comment. You are not being selfish. You are thinking with common sense. Your job is to protect your family from the predators and sociopaths who move through our society with far too much freedom.

Robert,

I'm not surprised you had a hard time judging the character of the inmates. Your instincts are probably okay for ordinary people, but, as you discovered, major criminals are usually sociopaths. And sociopaths are often superb manipulators of others. Not many people have the ability to spot an intelligent sociopath right away.

I had a memorable experience once getting my hair cut, back before I was married (my wife insists on doing it now, to save money, and she's gotten pretty good at it.) The haircutter was more or less moonlighting from a day job as a CO at the New Mexico State Penitentiary. I don't remember many specifics about the conversation, but she struck me as intelligent, law-abiding, almost completely cynical, and something of a control freak. I was sympathetic to much of what she said, but the experience was still a little creepy. Your comment about the COs being like prisoners seems an apt description.

Wow..what a story. I have a friend who use to be a prosecutor in the NY DA's office. One of the reasons he left the job was to protect his family. Congratulations on the success of your screenplay.

Oh, and just fyi, some of us bleeding heart liberals, are also for capital punishment.

Kent:

Thanks so much for your comment.

After my time at the prison, I sat down with the Warden for some debriefing.

When I told her about the one woman who truly moved me, who struck me as being "different" the warden sat back and laughed and laughed and you know what, I don't think she's stopped laughing.

She told me that this inmate was not a check forger as she told me, but had murdered both her children. She did it because her boyfriend didn't like them. Thus the children had to go.

Oh yes, she and bf took out life insurance policies on the children, 3 and five years old, a few months before they committed the double murder.

I was mortified. The Warden told me that I was no better, no worse than most citizens.

To those who oppose capital punishment, I'd like you to spend time with this mother and her boyfriend.

Oh, and try and keep in mind the murdered children. Or don't they count?

Oh, Kent, sorry for the rant. Sheeesh, I got carried away.

Ila:

Good to hear from you.

Yes, I do know that some bleeding heart liberals are in favor of capital punishment.

My friend Yehudit, who runs the excellent blog Kesher, refers to such liberals as Liberal Hawks--a fine designation. My friend Randi, who is a very proud Liberal and writes the blog Cruisin-Mom is also in favor of capital punishment. My friend Jake is another bloodthirsty liberal. I know quite a few others.

This is a welcome trend in Liberal ideology and it is my fervent hope that it will continue to grow and spread. Just as it is my hope that you will continue to read and comment in Seraphic Secret.

Robert - you can trust me implicitly :)
after all, if i had something to hide, i would have used an innocuous screen name (see how that works)
Maybe I'll have your wife screen my dates for me.

MH

Mata Hari:

Okey-dokey. I trust you.

As for Karen sceening your dates: Hmmm, she'll have to work it into her busy shidduch-screening schedule, but I'm sure she'll have time for just one more lonely and beauitiful spy.

Robert, I watched this movie and was very moved. (I've loved Ellen Burstyn since the first time I saw her, in the Exorcist, of course). Little did I know, while I was watching, that the writer of this movie would become my friend years later.

Randi:

Glad you liked "Within These Walls." I'm very proud of this film. Ellen Burstyn is a great, great actress and I spent an enormous amount of time with her working on her lines and making sure that we nailed her character. I learned so much from Ellen that I could and should write a book about the careful way she built and got into character -- and stayed there.

I am still in awe of her talent. Ellen made my script better in a hundred different ways.

hmmmmm....I guess my humanity causes me to be sad about such a wasted , pathetic life. My common sense and sense of justice make me ready to fight for the death penalty at all times. I hate that people become animals but when they do society has a responsibility to remove them. Guess that just makes me a conservative, what a surprise. Suz

Suz:

Your sadness for wasted lives is commendable. However, even more commendable is that your sentiments do not overide your sense of justice. Ultimately, I believe, this is one of the main issues that divide liberals and conservatives.

What a surprise.

I believe the death penalty is the right and proper punishment for premeditated murder, so your rant doesn't bother me.

I'm not sure supporting the death penalty means I have to put justice over sentiment or mercy. It can be argued that putting such twisted persons to death is an act of mercy, rather like shooting a mad dog. It spares them from living longer in their sins. It may also have some expiatory value.

Anyway, that's how I see it, from my own religious tradition. I'd wager it's not wildly different from the Jewish tradition, but I'm always ready to be corrected on such things.

Kent:

You are actually very correct. The Talmud's philosophy about the death penalty comes through many times as an act of mercy for the condemned, in that he/she can only hope for a chance in the next world if he/she pays for his/her debts in this one.

I think any religious person who opposes all capital punishment is probably somewhat ignorant of his or her religion's teachings. I think the best argument against capital punishment is the fact that any society that executes people will eventually execute an innocent person. But to me, that is a secular argument. It's also one that I reject, although with great hesitation.

Jake,

There's no doubt that a finding of capital murder requires a very high standard of proof. There's also no doubt that any reaasonable standard of proof will still misfire, 1 in 100 times, 1 in 100,000 times, or 1 in 100,000,000 times.

From a purely pragmatic point of view, one can argue that there is a balance point where the risk of mistaken execution exactly balances the risk of recidivistic murder. But pragmatic arguments are suspect in matters of morality, and incapacitation is not the only motivation for capital punishment.

To fail to execute a man when there is overwhelming evidence he premeditated a murder is to reveal one's basically secular orientation. If there is nothing besides this life, then perhaps death is universally horrible. If there is a better world waiting, the innocent man has nothing to fear from death except a few moments of pain -- and we have pretty much invented ways to avoid even that.

One hears arguments about the irreversibility of the death sentence. It's certainly irreversible, but is that so different from other punishments? Can you give an innocent man back the years spent in prison before new evidence shows he is innocent? Will his life ever be the same?

It's not an easy issue

When I first started reading this (excellent) post, I pictured you in drag, infiltrating the prison for research. Then I pictured a return of Women in Prison movies. Of course, I quickly realized this was much more serious, and based on that and the tone of the comments, my thoughts were pretty inappropriate. In fact, I probably shouldn't even click po

"My friend Yehudit, who runs the excellent blog Kesher, refers to such liberals as Liberal Hawks--a fine designation."

Thanks for the compliment and PR, Robert. :-)

This Israeli think-tank guy gave a talk at the Limmud conference about "post-Sharon Israel." He said Kadima filled a need for a large and invisible centrist constituency which is too hawkish for Labour and too liberal for Likud. We are the constituency for an American Kadima.

Yehudit:

You are very welcome.

It remains to be seen if Kadima will thrive. With Hamas's ascendancy among the Palestinians, the only thing that is absolutely clear in the mid-East landcape are their murderous intentions. And that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Ironically, I'm an anti-death-penalty conservative. And I know my religion (Evangelical Christianity) very well, and I oppose the death penalty mostly on secular grounds. It's a strange world, isn't it?

Kiwi:

This is not the place for a debate on the death penalty--which I support religiously and secularly, but to the proposition that it's a strange world, on this we agree completely.

Welcome to Seraphic Secret.

I wasn't intending to start a debate, and hoped nobody would take my comment as a challenge. I just found it really ironic, after reading the related comments. But I'm not really a pure conservative, I'm actually a right-leaning libertarian. Life makes strange bedfellows.

Kiwi:

"Life makes strange bedfellows."

And in this way, hopefully, we learn and grow.

Just finished reading this and "Prison: Just Like High School." I've also seen prison from the inside, having spent three years inside the State Pen at Walla Walla before the courts reversed my conviction. You are correct in that there are a lot of folks there who need to be in prison for their own good as well as for the public safety. The problem is that there are also a lot of people there who don't need to be there, who would be dealt with better and more economically by intensive community supervison, and it's costing us a fortune to deal with an ever-expanding prison system. Over the past century, it's become the punishment of choice, rather than that of last resort, and we're paying the price both in incredibly high financial cost and in ruined lives -- both of the prisoners and of their dependent families. Someday it may become evident to everyone that it's not in anyone's interests to overfill our prisons and run them as badly as the Constitution will permit, but in the meantime we've let them become a breeding ground for street gangs, radical Islam and general antisocial behavior.

Eli:

Thanks for writing. Look, I claim no expertise in prisons, prison reform, punishment, etc. I'm a Hollywood screenwriter. I was doing research for a film. I also spent time in Sing-Sing, and that was really scary — in an entirely different way.

Again, thanks for writing, and I sincerely wish you all the best.