Prison Trivia

Petitioning for a Commutation

Commutation is the act of changing a punishment to a less severe one. If you want to reduce your prison sentence, then you can file a petition for commutation.

However, you need to verify first if you qualify for a commutation.

To qualify, the convict usually needs to have good behavior inside the jail. So if you’re always getting into trouble while serving jail time, odds are you’re not likely to get approved in commutation. (Related: How to Survive Prison: Survival Tips From Former Inmates)

Since rules vary in each state, it’s best to ask your lawyer how your prison sentence can get commuted.

Involve Yourself in Alternative Programs

Enrolling in programs like the Residential Drug Abuse Program can be your other option. RDAP is a voluntary program for prisoners with substance abuse problems. There are many states that offer rehabilitation programs. However, you must meet certain criteria to be eligible for RDAP.

Criteria to be eligible to RDAP include:

• You must not have a conviction for a violent offense. (e.g. actual, attempted, or threatened the use of physical force)
• You must not have a conviction involving homicide, rape, robbery, arson, kidnapping, or sexual abuse of a minor;
• You must have verified problems with substance abuse.
• You must be a citizen of the United States.
• You must have at least 24 months remaining on your prison sentence.
• You must not have received a sentence reduction in the past through RDAP.

File a Motion

Last but not least, you can file a motion to reduce your prison sentence. Usually, your sentence can be reduced if you are 70 or older or have served at least 30 years on a life sentence. Also, if the state believes that you are no longer a danger to the public. (Related: What Happens After One’s Release From Prison)

But again, it will still depend on the rules of your state.

These are just a few tips on how to reduce your prison sentence. But then, it’s still better to keep yourself away from trouble to avoid spending your life behind bars.

The Numbers Gang

The Numbers Gang is a prison gang at Pollsmoor Prison, Cape Town, South Africa. They are well-known for their terrorizing reputation.
 
The gang is made of three different groups – the 26s, the 27s, and 28s, – hence their name.

Prisoners at Pollsmoor don’t have much of a choice. Their only option is either to join a gang, get raped or worse, murdered. (Related: How to Survive Prison: Survival Tips From Former Inmates)
 
Each gang has an individual role inside the prison. For example, The 26s are the ones who are capable of stealing while the 27 target prison guards. And to join the 27s, a prisoner should have stabbed a guard first.
 
Now in the 28s, there are two choices given to everyone who attempts to join this gang. They called it the “gold line” and the “silver line”.
 
The gold line will be a fighter, and the silver line will serve the fighters’ sexual needs.

For the prisoner who will choose the silver line, they will have to have sex with the 28s leader first, John Mongrel. Mongrel was already convicted at the age of 14. He believes in a same-sex relationship, thus creating the rule of the silver line.
 
According to the guards at Pollsmoor, the Numbers Gang in South Africa is still operating.

Los Zetas by Miguel Treviño Morales

Los Zetas is a Mexican criminal syndicate and considered one of the most ruthless drug cartels. The organization’s major concern is drug trafficking. But they also operate sex trafficking and smuggling guns.
 
It is now considered the third largest drug cartel that operates in Mexico. After the arrest of their recent leader in 2015, the whereabouts of their current leader, Omar Treviño Morales, is now unknown.

Los Zetas started small back in 1999 with only 34 men. All of whom are former Mexican Armies who worked with the Gulf Cartel – the second-largest Mexican drug cartel.

A few years after, their members grew to over 300 men. By 2010, Los Zetas decided to split off from the Gulf cartel and become independent.
 
Since then, the US government considered Los Zetas as the “most dangerous cartel operating in Mexico”. That was before the arrest of the most wanted drug lord and leader of Los Zetas, Miguel  Treviño Morales, in 2013,
 
Los Zetas engages in ruthless tactics such as beheading, torture, and merciless murders.

For instance, Los Zetas hijacked several buses full of migrants back in 2011.

Before they murdered everyone on the bus, they raped the women first, while forced the men to fight to the death. The winners on the fight were forcefully given jobs as assassins for Los Zetas.

Another one is the tragic murder of a journalist. Back then, No one can write nor speak out against Los Zetas or else, you won’t see the sun rise again.
 
Yet, an anonymous journalist stood up and wrote about the brutality and madness of Los Zetas.

That time, a hashtag “#reynosafollow” is being used as tweets against Los Zetas. This journalist was then revealed after a tweet was published from her own account, which says:

“#reynosafollow FRIENDS AND FAMILY, MY REAL NAME IS MARÍA DEL ROSARIO FUENTES RUBIO. I AM A PHYSICIAN. TODAY MY LIFE HAS COME TO AN END.”

Everyone was shocked about what happened. Shortly after that, it was followed by a tweet that showed two pictures. The first picture was a woman looking at the camera, who was assumed to be del Rosario Fuentes Rubio. The other one was the same woman with a gunshot wound to her head.

Unfortunately, the body of the presumed Maria del Rosario Fuentes Rubio was never found.

Los Zetas are also into beheading. If you search it online (which we highly NOT recommend) you will see a lot of Los Zetas beheading videos.

These are one of the many crimes that Los Zetas committed. With all their horrifying acts, these are enough to consider them as one of the most terrifying syndicates operating until now.

Our Lady of Flowers

Jean Genet, a French novelist, wrote Our Lady of the Flowers inside his prison cell in Paris.

Before Genet turned into writing novels, he was a vagabond and a petty criminal. While in jail, he wrote this fictional book, which according to claims is an erotic masterpiece.

Its story revolves around a drag-queen who describes her adventures in the underground world of gays in Paris.

Some say that the reason why this book has explicitly sexual stories is that Genet used this way to help himself while masturbating in prison.

Le Morte d’Arthur

Le Morte d’Arthur is a rework of an English author Sir Thomas Malory. 

He wrote this prose book in prison in the 1450s with charges of alleged rape and murder, and theft. 

This prose book is a rework of existing tales such as King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and Knights of the Round Table.

Conversations with Myself

This book is written by a social activist, Nelson Mandela. He was famous for fighting against the apartheid – a system that tolerates racism.

Because of his involvement in the anti-apartheid movement, he was charged treason and sentenced to life in prison.

This is where Conversations with Myself started. This book is a collection of Mandela’s writings where you can have a glimpse of his private life through his everyday diaries, notes, and letters.

After serving 40 years in prison, Nelson Mandela was pardoned and became the first black president of South Africa.

Civil Disobedience

An American essayist, Henry David Thoreau was sent to prison for refusing to pay a poll tax that provided the funding during the Mexican-American war.

He didn’t want to pay the taxes because he was opposed to the reason. This led to his incarceration for one day.

However, even if he only spent one night in jail, he was able to write an essay titled The Civil Disobedience.

This fictional essay describes Thoreau’s belief about resistance to the government. In this essay, he believes that the government does more harm than good, hence his resistance.

Yuma Territorial Prison, Arizona

Unlike the previous three, this prison operated only for 33 years before it closed down in 1909. It was built by seven prisoners who were also its first occupants. Of its 3,068 prisoners, 29 were women with crimes ranging from murder to polygamy. When overpopulation became a prevalent issue, they transferred the prisoners to the new state prison in Florence. After it closed down, the Yuma Union High School occupied it for four years. In 1961, they opened it to the public as a historical park.

There are a lot of things you can do in this prison museum. There’s a view deck that offers an excellent view of the Colorado River. Tourists can also climb up the guard tower overlooking the entire prison complex. They can also take a picture inside the cell blocks or in front of the Sally Port gateway, one of the prison’s last remaining original adobe structures.

Sing Sing Prison, New York

Sing Sing Prison got its name from a nearby marble quarry which was the source of the prison’s primary building material. The prison’s first inmates constructed the original building in 1825 entirely out of marble. After completion of the prison building, inmates were put into labor mining marbles. These were then used to build other notable buildings in the state like the Lyndhurst.

In its heyday, the prison follows an “Auburn System” of punishment. In this system, inmates work in labor groups during the day, but they can’t talk to each other. At night, they are kept in solitary confinement. If this is not enough to affect their sanity, the “Death House” certainly would. A total of 614 executions by electrocution occurred here. Eight of them were women.

Labor camps and executions aside, the prison also made it into Hollywood. It became the backdrop of several movies and documentaries between the 1930s and 1940s. Warner Bros. even donated funds for a prison gymnasium after filming many of their films there. It was also the site of the 1995 remake of the films “Kiss of Death” and “Bullet”.

In Sing Sing Prison Museum, tourists get treated to photos of past prisoners. The museum walls are covered with black and white photos of the people who lived and lost their lives within those walls. They also display a replica of the electric chair used for executions. Aside from prisoner memorabilia, the museum also features Native American artifacts.

Ohio State Reformatory, Ohio

The prison’s rich history goes way back to twenty years before the Civil War. The Ohio State Reformatory (OSR) held notable inmates such as William Sydney Porter better known as O. Henry, one of the world’s most famous authors. Apart from federal inmates, OSR also detained Confederate soldiers as prisoners of war who escaped by tunneling their way out.

Allegations of inhumane conditions and overcrowding plagued the prison for most of its existence. Finally, in 1990, a federal court ordered its closure owing to a class-action lawsuit filed by the inmates themselves.

What really put the OSR in the spotlight was the movie “Shawshank Redemption”. In fact, most people informally referred to it as the “Shawshank Prison”. Shortly afterward, the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society was formed. It transformed the prison into a museum to fund for its rehabilitation project.

The prison currently holds various kinds of tours to suit different interests and personalities. They have a self-guided tour, history meets Hollywood and a Shawshank bus tour. Because of the many paranormal stories surrounding the prison, they are also offering paranormal programs. It includes ghost hunting classes, public ghost hunts, and ghost walks. All year long, the prison museum hosts various events such as vintage baseball, Beerfest and the like.

West Virginia State Penitentiary, West Virginia

With a tagline that says “Where History Meets Mystery”, you can pretty much tell what to expect when visiting West Virginia State Penitentiary. But what sets it apart from other prison museums is that it looks more like a castle than a prison.

Built in the Gothic style, this imposing stone structure in West Virginia looks like a dark version of Disneyland. It has turrets and battlements and made of hand-cut sandstone. As was the practice of the time, the state used prison labor to construct it.

It started out pretty good as far as 19th-century prisons go. But over the years, conditions inside worsened. Gambling, fighting, and raping had become rampant. The prison was also terribly overcrowded. Thirty-six homicides, one huge break-in, and an infamous riot also occurred inside it. No wonder why it was in the US Department of Justice’s Top Ten Most Violent Correctional Facilities List.

Ninety-four men were also executed in this prison. Eighty-five of them died through public hangings. The others lost their lives to the electric chair, which the inmates named “Old Sparky”. Executed prisoners, whose families refused to claim their bodies, were buried in the prison’s backyard.

The violence, executions and architectural design gave this prison its paranormal appeal. Many people claim that the hairs on the back of their neck stand up every time they look at the prison from the outside. That’s why the prison is offering various paranormal tours and ghost hunting activities. Tourists can opt for a daily tour or an overnight investigation. It also holds the historic Elizabethtown Festival every December.