November 23, 2022 • 60 mins
It's no secret that the world's prison systems have tons of serious, fundamental problems -- yet most people can agree some criminals simply cannot be allowed into the public. When a question from a fellow Conspiracy Realist leads Ben, Matt and Noel into a rabbit hole, they ask: Who are the world's most dangerous prisoners? Perhaps more importantly, how do those in power define "danger" in the first place? They don’t want you to read our book.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It's the first of a two
part series. We were very interested in a question sent
(00:46):
to us by a fellow conspiracy realists asking who are
the world's most dangerous prisoners. Luckily, the four of us
here can confirm that we have. None of us been
imprisoned in the United States. Uh. If you live in
the United States, it's one of the places in the
(01:07):
world where you're most likely to go to prison, which
is a real bummer to think about, right way, I
can confirm that, right, none of us. Uh. Yeah, I
don't know. I've never been there in prison, but I've
seen oz so Uh. I kind of get the vibe
that shilling Oar was a real pill, right yeah. And
in Atlanta, we used to have a maximum security prison
(01:29):
which is now a medium security slash low security prison.
I thought it wasn't even functional anymore. It just looks spooky.
It's the big one that used to like, how is
I think al Capone back in the day. It's over
there by the music store and the really good taco shop. Yeah,
some of the best tacos in town. Oh yeah. It
was the second federal penitentiary that was ever created in
(01:52):
this country, right in our fair city. Yeah, because back
then Atlanta didn't have the political juice to make a nimbrgument.
Not in my backyard argument. For a time, it was
also home to someone the media dubbed the world's most
dangerous prisoner. Will get into that as well, and uh, personally,
I think that's a little bit more of a media
(02:14):
term than a factual statement. But to answer this question,
we have to go to some strange places. And to
be clear, first we have to focus on the US
and this episode, and with your help, folks, we can
expand to other continents in future shows. And with that mind,
here are the facts. Who there's a lot of people
(02:38):
locked up more and more and more, it seems, uh,
not just in the US, but in the world, there's
a If you're feeling like you're not depressed enough when
you tuned into this episode, please check out something called
the World Prison Population List. They survey two hundred and
twenty three different prison systems in countries and territories over
(03:00):
these possessions across the planet. They found that there are
more than ten point three five million people incarcerated throughout
the world on record. So that's caveat that doesn't count
a bunch of stuff, as we'll see. Yeah, and most
of most of those prisoners that are counted there are
in the US, so we've gone around two point to million. Yeah,
(03:23):
that means that statistically, odds are in favor of the
world's most dangerous prisoner being here in the States. That's
just the math. But that you know, it's not to
say other countries are not without horrific problems. The report
goes on to shout out a country at least I
wasn't expecting. Yeah, and uh, it comes from a country
(03:45):
that I was personally not even aware of, called Satchels,
which has the highest prison population rate in the world.
According to the report. You sided previously um with seven
nine per one hundred thousand of its total population incarcerated.
So basically, it's one of those places where, like several
places in the US, if you live there, you probably
(04:07):
know someone who's been to prison, if you haven't been
to prison yourself. Yeah, and it's it is a pretty
small country. It's off the it's in the East Indian Ocean,
off the eastern coast of the African continent. And the
population is about one hundred thousand, four forty seven people.
(04:28):
So not the biggest place, right. There are cities that
are much larger than than the entire population in the country.
But still, Matt, your point holds true. Uh, and I
love that you point out this is this reality in
some parts of the United States, right, especially historically disadvantaged communities.
(04:49):
Nothing occurs in a vacuum. There are a lot of
intergenerational structural things that lead people to a higher likelihood
of imprisonment. And these global statistics, says we said, they
sadly miss a lot of information. They don't account for
black sites. Remember those? How the news just stopped carrying
about those amid the War on Terror? Uh? What is
(05:13):
a black site? It's a cool name for a horrible thing. Oh,
it's a place that generally an intelligence organization outfit, maybe
in concert with a military or just a military itself,
they put together in secret to secret away prisoners, usually
prisoners of war, prisoners of a major conflict. And the
(05:33):
key there is that they're off the books, allowing them
to perhaps operate outside of the bounds of accepted methods.
Let's just say entertainments and forms of enhanced interrogation, because
it's it's usually an information gathering. That's the purpose, right,
It's to gather information from enemy combatants. And check out
(05:54):
our episodes on torture if you're still not depressed enough.
Whether or not torture works, enhanced interrogation is such a
such a fatuous term. I mean, it's like it's like
calling punching somebody a vigorous caress. Enhanced interrogation is torture
in many cases. And whether or not you believe torture
(06:18):
does work, it's important to be honest and call it
what it is. Uh it look, even in the legally
sanctioned prison systems across the world, I think everybody can
agree the vast majority of those are broken in one
way or another. I mean, I'll never forget the first
(06:39):
time I saw, uh, interior photos of some Scandinavian prisons
right where where people are honestly, you know, not to
diminish the fact that they're locked up. People are honestly
having a higher standard of living then a lot of
(06:59):
folks the United States. It's just a fact. If you
have you got you guys have seen those pictures, right,
They got PlayStations, they get they have the right to
cook all all sorts of stuff. So prisons are very
much not created equally. If you want to think of
famous broken prisons, think of some South American countries where
(07:20):
gangs more or less run the prisons. They're supposed to
imprison them now and then. And this some of this
is a numbers game. I found one thing, uh that
was of interest fromen some research for American Political Science
Review found that in a prison in Rio de Janeiro
(07:42):
in Brazil, there were one thousand, four hundred prisoners. Guess
how many prison officials worked there. Okay, no, you want
to make it, I'm gonna say a hundred. The answer
is six. Wow. I really thought I was jokingly under
(08:05):
under selling the tw Wow. Uh did you guys hear
about the I think it's the Maryland prison system where
there was a group called the Black Guerrilla Family and
they had essentially infiltrated the guards within like three or
four different facilities, and they were essentially a gang was
(08:25):
running the prisons to some extent. There were over two
hundred officials who worked for the prison system. They got
charged in twenty nineteen, I think, um, but two hundred
officials were doing it. They were just bringing in contraband
basically doing things for the gangs inside the prison and
(08:47):
outside the prison. It's nuts. That is that that might
be an episode. I heard of Black Gorilla, but I
hadn't heard of this situation. Matt. This is the first
time learning about this. For me, that's fascinating, and uh,
it could be illustrative of other other things on the horizon.
You know, there's something that we have never done an
(09:11):
episode on partially just because of the gruesomeness of it.
But South African prisons are often run by a criminal
series of criminal organizations called numbers gangs and how okay,
so we haven't done this on air. It's uh, it's brutal.
(09:34):
Two to give you just a taste of some of
the regular activities. Uh, these gangs used to enforce the
rule on the prison system. Uh, it is a known
punishment when someone steps out a line to have an
HIV positive attacker sliced the buttocks of the victim and
(09:59):
then assault them. Oh yeah, then that's just one thing.
So it's it's very brutal. And again, the the government
of South Africa has not had a lot of luck
tampi down on that broken system. And then of course
there's the United States prison system here is a multibillion
(10:20):
dollar business. When UH, private prisons came under fire, they
smoothly transition to detaining undocumented populations. And the prison system
itself is clearly descended directly from the days of slavery.
It's true, okay, but so we can all agree prison
(10:41):
systems have problems. But on the other hand, there's no
denying it. Most people are good when given the opportunity
to be so. But some people just can't be allowed
to mingle with the general public. They just cannot they're
too dangerous. Yeah, we're talking about murderers, serial assaulters, um
(11:04):
names that you may recognize like Pedro Lopez, the Monster
of the Andes or John Wayne Gacy, you know, the
clown guy that kind of ruined clowns for everybody, UM
and the MA in America anyway. Lopez, by the way,
that dude, every time I hear that name, see it
written down, I just want to fight things. Hundreds hundreds
(11:27):
of children and uh. He was in our Uncaught serial Killer,
one of our unconst serial Killer episodes, because he had
been released from an Ecuadorian prison in August of ninety
four and then re arrested instantly as an illegal immigrant
and handed over the border to Columbia, and then he
(11:52):
was held there in a hospital until where he was
declared sane, released on the equivalent of a fifty dollar bail,
and no one knows what happened to him since now
both Gaycy is dead thankfully, UM Lopez is probably dead
(12:14):
at this point. But we have to ask who are
the most dangerous prisoners today? Will start in the US
afterward from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Well,
(12:34):
given all that there's not really just what, there's unfortunately
a long list of candidates. There are as many candidates
for most dangerous prisoner as there are podcast, which means
a lot. Yeah. Yeah, Well, let's let's start with this
(12:55):
guy that I found on some random websites, and Ben,
you found him on some better websites. Dude named Tom
Silverstein Thomas Silverstein. And it's fascinating that he's listed as
one of the most dangerous prisoners because he doesn't seem
like a particularly good fellow. But he also doesn't seem
like somebody that prison officials would be terrified of, except
(13:20):
for one action that he took right also known as
Terrible Tom Uh. Until his death in twenty nineteen, this
guy was called the most dangerous prisoner in the States
or in the world, but it was this stood out
as well met to me. I don't know if the
title makes sense, because he was called this primarily due
(13:43):
to a couple of things, the murder of a guard UH,
the his membership and leadership of the Arian Brotherhood, a
white supremacist prison gang, and the length of his incarceration.
He was locked up for forty two years until he
died on May eleven, nineteen, and for thirty six of
(14:05):
those years he was in solitary confinement in the super
max UH. And this means that if you're in this
solitary confinement, you are by yourself for twenty three hours
a day, So for thirty six years. Yeah, one hour
in what you could call a yard, yep, and a
(14:25):
couple of rides. I think to Atlanta because he stayed
in the when it was a super max prison in Atlanta.
He stayed there for a while in solitary. Then he
went to that one we're going to talk about a
d X Florence, a d X, Yeah, And he began
his criminal career with a series of armed robberies in
the nineteen seventies. He had a total of three to
(14:48):
four victims, and Folks, if you follow true crime, you
know that that pales in comparison to the amount of
murders committed by others in the exact same US prison system. Uh,
he was definitely a bastard, but he was probably never
the world's most dangerous prisoner. And honestly, calling him that
(15:10):
lends a sense of importance that we don't think he deserves.
It doesn't make me wonder how much outside influence he
was able to have because he's in solitary confinement, right,
but surely he can make phone calls or something. And
I just wonder if he was ever able to influence
the actions of other, perhaps gang members that were outside
(15:31):
of the prison or in prison if he was allowed
to communicate. Yeah, that's one of the things that makes
make someone a dangerous prisoner, right. Uh and that's a
great question, Matt. So the thing is though, that after
he murdered, correction officer named Merle Klutz c l U
(15:53):
T T S in the entire system said, look, we
can't it give this guy the death penalty because he
he got solitary, got life. Essentially, he's going to die
in prison, but we can't kill him, so we're going
to make his life a living hell. That's a quote
from a book about Leavenworth. Uh. They weren't really afraid
(16:17):
of him, They simply despised him with good reason. But
so okay, so does he quote unquote deserve that title? Again?
We think it's media branding, But make no mistake, there
are monsters behind bars all across the world, and we
have to ask ourselves, how do we determine who the
most dangerous are? Is it simply the number of people killed, injured,
(16:41):
or assaulted by a single individual, or do we try
and guess at the potential harm that could occur if
those folks are walking free. That's what law enforcement agencies
tend to do. That's what they've struggled with when it
comes to sentencing terrorists suspects for example. Right, well, and
I think to understand and this distinction, Um, there are
(17:01):
so many factors that go into it. So I think, uh,
it's a good idea to explore kind of a shortlist
of several of the most dangerous prisoners instead of you know,
laser focusing in on just one. Because in the US,
the most dangerous prisoners are held in a place called
a d X florence. Um. A d X florence is
(17:22):
intended as a temporary kind of holding facility to teach
the most high risk prisoners kind of how to It's
weird to think, you know, because prison, in theory is
meant to acclimate folks back to society. But this is
like a prison meant to acclimate folks to regular prison
(17:42):
because they're not even built for that that, you know,
because the idea there is they would just upset the
whole order of things if they were introduced into you
know what they call in oz gen pop. Yeah, if
they were, if they were in gen pop, if they
were in GP, then they would so okay us right,
the ideas people would die, uh, And the weird thing
(18:04):
about a d X is, even though it's supposed to
be as as you described it, in all a kind
of way point, a stopover, there are criminals there who don't,
who don't make it out and never will their long
time residents of the facility, because they have this potential
to inspire new criminals to direct crimes like you were
(18:26):
talking about, Matt, if they're allowed to communicate in any
way with people outside of the walls, right, and they're
they're outside communications are intensely monitored. You know, you could
say this this scary thing. You could say these individuals
that were about to discuss have an infectious evil. It's
(18:46):
a contagious thing, and that makes it almost sounds supernatural, right,
but it is incredibly dangerous, or at least that's the
rationale for isolating them. And again, you know, there's an know,
there's an entire uh discourse about how those individuals should
be treated or detained. Should they simply be executed? Right?
(19:09):
Should they be kept alive? The great expense to the
taxpayer is solitary confinement a cruel and unusual punishment, right,
And that's the interesting thing to here, is that one
would think typically the most egregious of crimes and and
and the folks who would be considered the most dangerous
(19:29):
would be executed. But there are oftentimes extenuating circumstances and
legal loopholes, etcetera that caused that to not be a thing.
Whatever your position is on the death penalty, it does happen.
It is legal in many parts of the world, including
the United States. Let's get into the curious case of
this first person we're going to discuss, because he fits
(19:51):
some of the things we're talking about, but he also
like breaks the mold a little bit because well, let's
just get into it. A man named Umar Abdul Mutalab.
This is a Nigerian man that you likely remember. We
talked about this on the show while back. This was
big news here in the US. UM. You may know
someone as the underwear bomber. That was a phrase that
(20:16):
was banded about on news all over the place. This
is a person who is supposedly connected to al Qaida.
I guess was connected to al Qaeda, But how deep
that connection was. I don't think I've ever been told
by any news outlet, UM, because that's probably information that's
being kept quiet. But he's currently serving four life sentences.
(20:38):
M M. Yeah, and nobody died, that's the thing, right,
So there's stuff that there's definitely stuff they don't want
us to know about, perhaps the connections and and the
liability that having this person out in the world would cause.
I mean, obviously that this attempted bombing is enough reason enough,
But there does there there there does seem to be
(21:00):
information that we maybe don't have. But but he's the
human being that strapped on the explosives and got on
the plane and attempted to blow the plane up and
himself right, So to me, that means he's not at
all a mastermind. He is a tool, a utensil that
was being brandished by some some organization, likely al Qaeda.
(21:22):
So like, what why is he so dangerous though? Is
it just because they could use him again if you
ever got out right? Likely? Um So, So for the
time being, he is in the super maximum UH facility
at least partially because of those questions that we're talking about,
that kind of linger about the amount of support that
he had from a larger terrorist organization in the form
(21:46):
of al Qaeda. Um. While he was, as you said, Matt,
much more of a tool, a trigger man, if you will,
um would be suicide bomber. He was certainly not the
brain of the operation. Right, Yeah, he's thirty five as
we record this episode today. So he's a young man
(22:09):
whose life unfortunately is over, you know. And that's not
to you know, that's not to defend those actions at all.
It's just a waste of a life because he attempted
to murder two hundred and eighty nine people. And you
know this, there's this thing personally, I don't love it
(22:30):
when when the media gives these sorts of singular criminals nicknames,
because it leads to you know, it leads to various
production companies, producers I'm not going to name exploiting the
situation and doing so under the guys of helping somehow. Right,
(22:54):
the information needs to be out there, but we also
need to understand co modification of these criminals by giving
them a name like a nickname. Isn't an entirely ethical
thing to do. Ryan Murphy Zodiac, No, No, you didn't
do that name, Matt. You did a deep dive, kick
(23:17):
ass exploration of very important and still unsolved mystery. Well,
I certainly said throughout the show so he said he
said it with gusto and uh and the level of headedness. Also,
no one knows that name. We know the underwear bomber's name.
(23:37):
No one knows who the Zodiac killer was. So that's
a different case you think you did. And I'm specifically
also referring to this very divisive Jeffrey Dahmer series has
really got the Internet going nuts. And you know, my kid,
who's thirteen, says a lot of her peers quote unquote,
(24:00):
who she doesn't particularly care for in middle school, are
in fact romanticizing this guy because of this American horror
story treatment of his life. And there is almost a
sense of creating empathy for this person through this dramatization.
And you know, the producers claim, oh no, it's giving
(24:21):
voice to the victims, and you know, we're doing it
through the perspective of the victims. But in many cases,
when you put kind of a star like this, whatever
the kid's name is, Um who plays him. He's not
a kid, but you know I'm talking about he's in
all the American Kevin Peters, you know, it does kind
of put him in the focus. And you know, also
(24:42):
apparently there's a real Um affection for Patrick Bateman, you
know in American Psycho by a lot of these kids
in middle school, which is weird to me, um because
American horror story and that whole kind of salacious treatment
of horrific you know, crimes and such UH is something
that is kind of geared towards that age set, even
(25:03):
if they wouldn't come out and say it, well, there's
I mean, there's that moribund fascination with the misfortune of others,
you know, UH, and and the idea, the folklore that
surrounds UH criminals in the United States is an old
part of the culture. I mean, it's weird to say
(25:23):
old part of the culture for such a young country.
But you know, Dillinger was deified, right, Bonnie and Clyde
were romanticized. This is something that happens in the United States.
So this this guy, abdul Matalab is not gonna is
not gonna see a day outside of jail for the
(25:45):
rest of his life or prison, excuse me. And it's
because of those connections. If you look at the story,
you'll see that eyewitness reports name folks who assisted in
his attempted attack and then just faded off. The radar
and are possibly quite possibly still out there active somehow.
(26:05):
And if you are in counter terrorism or law enforcement,
that's a haunting thing, right, because those guys are not
the type of people to say, oh, it didn't work out,
I guess now I'll take up photography or dressage or something.
Uh that's the one with the horses, right, Yeah, that's
(26:26):
the one with the horses. Step daintily. Yeah, they're not
getting into that. They've already decided what they want to do,
and that's a so that connection. We see that with
another example, James Marcello, the purported head of the Chicago outfit,
which is uh mafia in Chicago. This guy participated in
(26:46):
the murders of at least eighteen people and a lot
of classic mob stuff, extortion and bribery. He's in there.
Are you talking about Jimmy, Jimmy de Man Marcelo or
Little Jimmy. That's antis Well, it's interesting because we're kind
of talking about categories here. We've got your terrorists, you know,
we've got your your serial killer types. We've got your
(27:09):
sort of low level not low level, but maybe more
lone wolf kind of aggravated cereal assaulters and criminals that
you know are just bad folks. Then you have your
organized crime connected folks. Yet there are categories, So I'm
glad you point that out and all because for each
of these people were naming, there are minimum well for
(27:31):
most of them, there are minimum dozens of other examples
that are quite similar. So James Marcello old school Chicago Mafia.
Weirdly enough, like even though he was described often by
law enforcement as the mob boss of the area, UH
insiders and some other folks would later go on to
(27:51):
paint him as a figurehead and they would say, look,
he was the face, but the day to day operations
were run by other people. It also begs the question of, like,
are these incarcerations sort of fall guy situations where it's
taking it's sort of like, see, we did a thing,
we we we were fixing it. You know, we're we're
putting away the bad guys, but they're honestly just the
(28:14):
bad guys that were the lowest hanging fruit that they
can then use as a symbolic act of a bigger,
you know, solution that maybe isn't actually being implemented, right,
almost like paying tribute to this system. Oh no, you
got our boss. I guess we have to take ups
(28:35):
so right to go to for reformed criminals. You heard
it here. Uh, but this is the thing. So if
you um, if you follow news about organized crime, then
you'll recognize Marcello as one of the top people convicted
in this huge racketeering case in two thousand seven, The
(28:56):
Family Secrets, it's called. Two years later, he gets sentenced
to the Long Ride life in prison, right, so you
know he's at the point where he might ride the
Lightning or take the Long Ride, and they sent him
to death the long Way, and it's Ride the Lightning
the like electric chair or is that it's even like
(29:17):
as a metallic album called Ride the Lightning, And I
don't know if it was on the cover of the album.
There was definitely a very popular T shirt where it
was like a skeleton kind of in an electric chair,
you know, being zapped. For some reason, I had it
associated with drug use. I don't know why. That's the
Dragon Chase, the Dragon Ride the Lightning. I made up
(29:39):
Take the Long Ride because it is brutal. It's not
as brutal in Japan. In Japan, I think we talked
about this in the past. When you get a death sentence.
They don't tell you when you're going to die. You
were just imprisoned, and then once at some point, maybe
a few maybe a few years, maybe a decade, they
(30:03):
come for you and they hang you. That's the Green Mile, right, No, No,
was the Green Mile the walk to the to the
to the lights out situation? Oh? Yeah, yeah, the yeah,
the Green Mile was in Stephen King's novel That was
the walk. Uh. And then Tom Waits has a song
called Walking Spanish, which is about the same thing. And this. Okay,
(30:27):
so this guy, like we said, contagious, right, the connections.
He's considered dangerous because he's deep with organized crime. He's
not a lone wolf. Right. If he gets out, there's
serious concern that he would be able to sow some
more chaos. Interestingly enough, he may not be imprisoned for
(30:48):
the long ride. Two years ago he filed a petition
in federal court to have that life sentence tossed out
due to his age. He probably will die in prison.
But it was just to get resentenced, right, yeah, yeah,
it wasn't. It wasn't let me out. And here will
pause for a word from our sponsor and return with
(31:09):
some more examples of incredibly dangerous people in prison, and
the stories just get more complicated by the way we've returned. Uh,
this is a this example is a little bit similar
(31:31):
to it has commonalities at least with Marcello, but it's
uh different, It's much more complicated. We're talking about the
former leader of the Gangster Disciples, Larry Hoover. You may
recognize him from uh, some songs by your favorite artist.
You may recognize him from various documentaries, also various controversies. Currently,
(31:57):
Hoover is serving six life sentences and his criminal career, well,
his entire life may well be its own episode. He's
considered actively dangerous because he fooled the system. Actually this
is true, and his crimes did not stop when he
was incarcerated. He was doing what you were describing, Matt.
(32:19):
He's he's a quintessential example of touching the outside and
having power while being physically, uh physically bounded in the system.
He directed the Disciples and grew them from prison all
the way through the nineteen nineties. But there are a
lot of caveats along the way. I think, oh yeah,
(32:42):
I mean, well, one of the biggest ones is that
if if you listen to Hoover himself. He says, hey,
I don't you know, I don't run anything with the
Disciples anymore. Come on, I'm not the leader, which I guess.
If you believe him, that's great, But if you don't,
then he could potentially to be doing it again. And
that's one of the reasons that he's considered too dangerous
(33:04):
to be allowed with any kind of freedom, even though
he's he's well, he's well old, right, seventy and he's
in his seventies. He's well old in it and yeah,
it turns seventy two at the end of this November.
And because of his ability to recruit new members during
his sense and incarceration, his opportunities to keep in touch
(33:28):
with people on the outside UH, and his promotion UH
for for a while of of non violence and community service,
he started being called King Larry, and he became arguably
more powerful in prison than ever he was as a freeman.
(33:49):
But it turned out, at least from the perspective of
law enforcement agencies, that when he changed Gangster Disciples to
growth and development and started doing a lot of community
work or directing a lot of it, law enforcement said
it was a front and he actually fooled them by
(34:10):
growing a criminal enterprise under the guise of public reform,
kind of like Gus Freeing making a fast food empire. Yeah,
you could kind of consider this a fool me once
type situation um, with prosecutors and law enforcement convinced that
he's going to continue to recruit and grow organized crime
(34:31):
rings if he's released, despite you know, him seemingly coming
clean and changing his ways early stating that he has yes, yes, yes,
And it really is a very divisive issue and a
conversation within you know, I mean the framework of all
of this stuff surrounds what is the prison system? How
(34:52):
does it function? Uh? Is it broken? You know, is
it in need of reform? Um? At the very least, yes,
it does in need of reform. But it's a difficult
thing to do because of so much infrastructure and place
and legacy policies and just the way these facilities are run. Uh,
(35:13):
there's a critical mass at play that is hard to
kind of stop or reverse of course. Correct. Yeah. And
in our conversation we had off Air along with our
their pal Paul Mission Control. Uh, you know, it brought
up the fact that a perfect society is one that
does not have prisons, does not have chains, you know,
(35:34):
And that's why it's important for us to open up
when we talked about this stuff by saying, yeah, in
many many ways, prison systems are broken. You know. It's
it's true, and it's undeniable. And anybody who says otherwise, UM,
I just can't agree with him. So but I, well,
then don't I kind of say otherwise? And maybe I'm wrong?
(35:57):
And that's what I want to have a bigger conversation
with you guys about the I think about the that
show La Monstra and Matt Graves of the host that
we talked to, and that particular case where, yeah, Mark
de trou was in prison for assaulting women and capturing
them and holding them and essentially imprisoning them and assaulting them.
(36:19):
He went to prison for that for a little while,
and then they let him out because he had he
was on his good behavior, and then he did the
exact same thing to other women and killed them. I
think I think his I think his master's let him out, honestly, Um,
but ultimately, what do you do with him if you
don't have chains? I see what you're saying, Yeah, but
(36:40):
that to that I would respond, a perfect society is
also one that does not have those people, so that,
you know, like the old argument of utopia, right, utopia,
the definition of utopia is a perfect thing comma that
does not exist. And typically when we see topias in
(37:01):
like you know, science fiction, usually they're kind of dystopian
utopias that's involved drugging the population in some way or
having people be complacent like in Brave New World or
what have you, um, or just controlling people's ideas, you know,
and uh and kind of you know, having people be
(37:21):
these docile chess pieces you know of the state. And
when you have autonomy and when you have free will, um,
you're gonna have some bad apples. You know that that
shouldn't necessarily mean well, shouldn't have free will. That's very
loaded in and of itself. And in another conversation, entirely
like in Clockwork Orange, you know, you have this whole
scenario where the bad actor that you know, Alex de
(37:43):
Large is put into this program that programs him, deprograms
him from behaving badly, but then it also essentially robs
him of his free will and makes him this kind
of pathetic um you know, pawn um that that that
doesn't have control over his own autonomy at all, which
is basically almost worse than being imprisoned. I guess, I
(38:06):
don't know. It's it's a different kind of prison, prison
of the mind. And and I love the Kuber adaptation,
but I like, if you want the full story, read
the book because last chapter, yeah, the chapter that was missing.
It's it's now in the American editions as well. Finally,
but but yeah, this is this is an ongoing conversation.
(38:27):
I'd love to recommend if anybody likes TED talks. Sometimes
they're a little bit utopian, to be honest, but do
check out a great TED talk, What a World Without
Prisons Could look Like by Diana Van Buren. And I
think it addresses a lot of the points we're talking
about now well. And Larry Hoover is a great example
of everything we're talking Yeah, yeah, yeah, because some some
(38:49):
ordinary citizens, particularly in Chicago, Illinois, see Hoover as an
inspiration because of his promotion and community service, empowerment, emphasize education,
discouraging violence, you know, from like inter gang warfare and
so on. Uh, his followers don't always align with those values,
(39:12):
but people still insist, you know, his heart is in
the right place, and that's why you hear people, Um,
that's why you hear people pushing for his release. As
a matter of fact, earlier this year, in July, he
sent a letter to a federal judge asking for reduction
on his life sentence, saying, Hey, I have changed, I
(39:32):
have grown. Uh. He made the same request last year,
you know. So this this evolution is also another episode
of its own. But we can't end. We're talking about
folks are regarded as dangerous. One person we have to
end on is Theodore Ted Kaczynski, former math professor, domestic terrorist.
(39:55):
His name is familiar to and his nickname is familiar
to followers a true crime and conspiracy alike. He was
a rec loose for a long time. He sent mail
bombs to university researchers for decades. And essentially it's because
if you read his manifesto, he's very concerned about advancements
(40:16):
and science. The problem with this guy isn't that he's
also brilliant. We're talking super villain level smart. The FBI
admits as like they admit it when they talk about him. Yeah,
here's a quote that comes from FBI dot gov website
you should pruse if you want to. It's fun. It's
like testing limits. Are they gonna track me? What if
(40:37):
I go on their own website? Let's find out here
we go. Quote. How do you catch a twisted genius
who aspires to be the perfect anonymous killer, who builds
untraceable bombs and delivers them to random targets, who leaves
false clues to throw off authorities, who lives like a
rec loose in the mountains of Montana and tells the
no One of his secret crimes. That's a real great
(40:59):
hypothetical question there. Did they go on to answer it?
They do. No, that's just that's the whole thing. They
gave up because they couldn't answer it. They did, they did,
They did eventually answer it. They go into detail about
how they cooperated with other agencies for the better part
of twenty years to track down this person that they
(41:20):
called the Union bomber short for University bomber, it's a portmanteau.
And they only caught him when they did something very extraordinary.
He kind of he led to his own arrest because
he saw himself as an agent of ideology, which will
be important in Part two of this series. He sent
(41:41):
a thirty five thousand word essay explaining what he saw
as his motives and what he saw as, uh, all
the wrongs of modern society. The FBI did something they
don't usually do. And you know this if you have
ever been in the world a true crime. They published
(42:02):
this manifesto and this because they were at a loss
and this manifesto, like they may have never caught him
if he hadn't said this thing and they hadn't published it,
because it led to Kazynski's brother seeing it and saying,
I think you should look at my sibling for this.
His writing style is similar. Here are some other examples
(42:24):
of things that he has written. And and then the
brother cooperated to try to help find this guy. April third,
they arrest him. They go through his cabin where he's
living in a a pretty primitive life except for you know,
bomb making technology. Yeah, I mean it's interesting too. This
(42:45):
is really kind of the fodder for serial killer lair
kind of vibes, you know, with all of the Seven
also in you know the New Batman, the Batman with
the Riddler, uh, tiny handwritten you know the text in journals,
thousands of journals, handwritten pages um. That included things like,
(43:07):
you know, bomb making components and all of that, and
descriptions of crimes and also a live bomb ready to
be put in the post. And then of course the
the rabbit hole about his psychologue, his participation in psychological
studies in the second year at Harvard that goes pretty deep.
(43:29):
Do check that out. He was involved in a experiment
led by a Harvard psychologist called Henry Murray, and this
was described as purposely brutalizing the participants. And this, you know,
you can see a lot of people linking this to
(43:49):
government funded experiments with mind control, a similar similar that's
the idea, because the CIA was active in that for
a while. And check out Operation Midnight Climax um you
hosted by our own Noel Brown for more information on
some aspects of that. I don't think it gets the
(44:11):
Kazynski study, but but it's mentioned in passing. But yeah, yeah,
but it's definitely not the crux of it. But we
do know that these kinds of things did take place,
and that the CIA operated fast and loose, you know,
with people's lives. Absolutely no question about that. Yeah. And
(44:31):
also just to point something out, in both Russia and
the United States and the Soviet Union and the United States.
I should say, uh, they figure it out collectively that
the easiest way to assassinate someone and make it look
just enough like an accident is to say they fell
from a window. The finisht rate. Yes, God, I love
(44:55):
this language. You know, No one finish strates. They just
definish strate. Uh so this so this thing, what we're
saying is there's a lot to Kacynski. And when they
came in, just as you describe, No, they find this
thing that looks like the layer of someone who is
mentally not well. Forty thousand handwritten journal pages documenting philosophy,
(45:20):
documenting bomb making experiments in progress, descriptions of UNI bomber crimes.
Also a bunch of like random bomb components laying around,
some of which, by the way, it would just look
like household junk if you didn't know how to put
it together. This is sort of um anarchist cookbook stuff, right,
(45:42):
And I would recommend reading that, reading that tone or
a version of it if you get access. You might
have to, uh find the right counterculture in the basement
of the right bookstore. Right, that's right, vintage books, Go
check them. Out they're in. I guess shamblely maybe Brooke
caven whatever you can figure out. In Atlanta. Uh, guys,
(46:02):
you know what, they didn't mention the authorities when they
rated that old cabin. They didn't mention all the zodiac
ciphers that they found in there. I'm just joking. I'm
just you might not be joking because they still haven't
mentioned it. So Uh. They also importantly found one live
(46:24):
bomb packed and ready to go in the post. He
doesn't put up you know, he doesn't say he's changed,
he doesn't say um any kind of mitigated stuff. He
pleads guilty in January, and then fast forward last year,
he leaves a d X. He's transferred to the Federal
(46:45):
Medical Center in North Carolina. Uh. The officials involved did
not disclose why he was transferred to a to a
primarily medical facility there, but in a letter to a
pinpal again all the communications are closely monitored unlista with lawyers,
he indicated he's suffering from terminal cancer. So if you
(47:09):
are the authorities, there are a couple ways to look
at this. You could say compassionate release would let him
die of freeman or with some validity you could argue
he has even less to lose. And this is the
same facility we talked about earlier in the episode that
has sort of meant to acclimate the most dangerous and
(47:31):
unhinged prisoners too regular you know, prison population UM and
Paul Mission Control off air pointed out that this facility
a d X and Florence has been the subject of
of many controversial acts and accusations UM, including you know,
(47:53):
the proliferation of of of suicides there. Uh, and then
the idea that they aren't actually identifying truly mentally ill
um inmates or patients and treating them appropriately. So again
there there comes that breakdown in how the prison system
operates and how these folks are treated. Um, is it humane?
(48:15):
You know? Is this more in the vein of of
of a black site than than we might like to admit,
you know what I mean? I mean, you know, I'm
I'm being hyperbolic a little bit there, but I don't
think so. It's a place to put people that whatever
that authority structure is believes are too dangerous to be
(48:35):
you know, even walking around living in a certain situation
with other inmates. It's yeah, well too to the point
to about um obscene treatment that you're talking about. No,
people who did not successfully take their own lives to
d d X were often punished for attempting to do so,
which is not quite the right approach, to say the
(48:58):
very least. And there have been a lot of lawsuits
regarding what we're describing about about mental health. And this
This leads us to one of the most disturbing things
about these conversations. A lot of a lot of these
conversations hinge on asking the right question. Right when we
(49:20):
ask who are the world's most dangerous prisoners or who
are the most dangerous prisoners in the US, we have
to ask why? Right? What? What creates this? Because again,
nothing exists in a vacuum, you know, and it like,
let's say someone's young, they do something violently stupid, like
(49:41):
they try to rob someone because they want some extract cash, right,
or they want to get initiated into some sort of
social group, and they get caught, they get convicted, they
go to prison for several years unless their parents are
well connected. I hate to phrase it that way, but
that is often the reality. You know, That's not an opinion.
Access to high high level, high quality UM lawyers and
(50:06):
legal assistance makes all the difference. Um, we know how
people can get out of things or get get things
pled down, uh, charges reduced, etcetera. Even something as simple
as traffic cord you know, if you have a good
enough lawyer. So I mean money and uh and privilege
certainly does enter into it, There's no question about it. Um.
(50:26):
But but but to your chicken and egg question, Ben,
this really does lead to a larger question of is
that time incarcerated actually rehabilitative or is it just reinforcing um,
the bad habits that someone already has and preparing them
to just kind of learn how to operate a little
more under the radar once they get out, and just
(50:48):
to smarten up and learn lessons you know, by example
in prison from other you know, craftier criminals or what
have you, right, or get deeper because their forced to
you know, their kid in prison and suddenly they're forced
to group up with someone to posse you up to survive, right,
(51:09):
which requires them to commit uh increasingly criminal acts. It
makes it more likely that there will be restive recidivism,
which is returning to prison in the future. And not
not to mention, I mean those connections made in prison
connect into the outside world, you know. I mean you
get leagued up with a certain group in prison and
they take care of you in prison. That's going to
(51:31):
translate to once you get out and if your life
is over in terms of being in the system. Now, Um,
you can either make a choice to become like a
normy and just work the only type of job that
you can even get, which is going to be low level,
low paying, or are you going to join a criminal
enterprise that's going to allow you to make more money
(51:52):
by continuing to commit criminal acts and do it smarter
with the help of others in the outside world that
you got leaked up with in prison. Yeah, there's this. Uh.
This reminds me of a of a great freestyle from
Fire in the Booth by Uh by a guy named Simba,
and the line that particularly stood out to me talks
about the again the intergenerational issues with who goes to
(52:18):
prison and who gets you know, probation or who gets
pre trial intervention in this country, and the line is
something like, uh, a white man gets slapped on the
wrist and gets a part and that's what happens when
your father went to college with your honor, you know,
like that's I'm just saying because it's it's a really
well written line, but speaking the truth. And if you're
(52:40):
if you're a fan of hip hop, do you check
out Simba. But as you're doing that, stay tuned for
part two of this continuing series. There is one more
aspect of this story. There's a curve ball that we're
throwing at the very end. Speaking of asking the right questions,
(53:00):
how do you define dangerous? In governments around the world,
the most dangerous prisoners are not considered so because of
their violent acts, but because of their ideas. So stay
tuned for the World's Most Dangerous Prisoners Part two, Politics
and Power. Yeah, but what you guys, what about remorse?
Like there's there are killers out there that shows zero
(53:22):
remorse for killing other human beings. Like I mean, I mean,
we were talking about organized crime, We're talking about problems
with economic inequality that lead to that kind that kind
of connection that y'all are mentioning. But I think that radar. Yeah, Like,
what what do you do with that? I mean, I
think we got I don't think it's as simple as
(53:43):
one blanket answer, right, Like, what do you do with
somebody like that or prisons good or our prisons bad.
It's it's it's so much more complicated. Yeah, well back
to chicken and egg. It's a nature nurture thing too,
where it's like if you're predisposed, you know, psychologically to
violent acts, which we know is a thing. You know,
there are certain types of brain chemistry or or or
(54:06):
issues you know, malformations or what have you uh in
people's psychology that can predispose them to the stuff, and
then it's further enhanced or exacerbated by nurture or lack thereof,
or being in a situation where it is like reinforced
by either a parent or you know, lack of attention
(54:26):
from a parent, or falling in with the wrong or
right you know, perfect storm kind of crowd. Um. So,
again to to your point earlier than about utopia or
to the perfect society has when without prisons, you can't
fix people's brain chemistry. There's there's nothing, you know, short
of again dosing the water and just having people drugged
(54:49):
into complacency. There's nothing we can do to to make
sure that people aren't born withinnate deficiencies in the in
them that caused them to to be this way. Let
me add one more thing here, because this is let's
go macro right. Uh. This is something a lot of
people don't consider. If you have made it through this
(55:09):
episode and you're still like, gosh, I wish I was
more depressed. The human brain. If you're a human and
you're listening to this, the human brain is not evolved.
Two function in the societies that human civilization has created.
In the nineteen seventies, there were four billion people on
the planet. As of November, there are eight billion. It
(55:33):
is doubled right, humanity. Whatever you think about good or
bad apples, and obviously the worst apples are red delicious apples.
I said it. They're just not popping whatever you think
there are. There are hard limits to the number of
people that your brain can consider people. That is why
(55:55):
those in power commit such atrocities and sleep us fine
at night. Uh. And the reason that I say utopian,
the reason I say like a perfect society is one
without prisons, is because a perfect society doesn't exist. I mean,
what are you gonna say North Sentinel Island is a
perfect society. It's probably not. There are probably some people
(56:17):
there who are just jerks, you know, real pills. Uh,
and I don't. I don't think any of us know
the answers, but I think all three of us are
bringing up good points, and we'd love for you to
be a part of this conversation. Yeah, I think we
would love to hear from listeners, like, especially if you
if you hold a hard line belief one way or
(56:38):
the other, prisons are absolutely necessary. We need them and
this is what we do with people who are dangerous
or and I didn't I didn't say they're not necessary.
I said a perfect society wouldn't happen. I just mean
from listener, like, if you're listening and you hold that
belief right, prisons are good, or if you hold the
(57:00):
if all prisons should be like, get rid of them.
We don't need them anymore. I'd love to know, like,
what are solutions to deal with people that collectively we've
decided this person is dangerous? Um? Just what what is
your solution? Restorative justice? Is it, well, you know, is
it some sort of almost sci fi level thing the
punishment fits the crime. Like if you are a McVey
(57:23):
and you bomb, you bomb the location, are you then
sentenced to a thing where you just build? Though? Like
if you for instance, if you bomb, say an abortion clinic,
instead of being put in prison, should be put on
a work detail where you just build preventative care clinics
for the rest of your life. It's that old thing
(57:45):
about like, oh, your your parents caught you smoking a cigarettes,
so they put you in the closet and make you,
hope smoke a whole pack of cigarettes, which is child abuse,
by the way. But you've heard that old, that old chestnut, right,
I mean I have not. Okay, well, man, I don't
know that I ever heard anybody having this happen to them,
but it does seem like an urban legend, the kind
of trope, you know. So as you can tell, this
(58:06):
is one of those explorations where the three of us
end up taking the conversation off air. We're probably this
is probably gonna be one of the things we talked
about when we hang out in person as soon as
one of us brings it up, because I think this,
this dilemma, this Gordian not stays with us, and it
probably will stay with you folks. So please, as Matt said,
(58:29):
reach out to us, let us know your thoughts, let
us know what your what your stances. As you said, man,
particularly if you have a strong one. We want to
hear it. We're not saying that we have the answers.
We're not telling anybody what to think, but this is
and this is just one part of a larger, deeper
(58:50):
dive in the meantime, help us out if you have
the answer, just like we said with a mass shooting deaths,
if you have the answer, right to us, let us
know if you're convinced you have the answer. We want
to be easy to find online. We do want that,
and I think we mainly get there. You can find
us at Conspiracy Stuff on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube Conspiracy
(59:12):
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(59:34):
why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(59:59):
Don't Want You to Know is a production of I
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listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Controlled decond. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It's the first of a two
part series. We were very interested in a question sent
(00:46):
to us by a fellow conspiracy realists asking who are
the world's most dangerous prisoners. Luckily, the four of us
here can confirm that we have. None of us been
imprisoned in the United States. Uh. If you live in
the United States, it's one of the places in the
(01:07):
world where you're most likely to go to prison, which
is a real bummer to think about, right way, I
can confirm that, right, none of us. Uh. Yeah, I
don't know. I've never been there in prison, but I've
seen oz so Uh. I kind of get the vibe
that shilling Oar was a real pill, right yeah. And
in Atlanta, we used to have a maximum security prison
(01:29):
which is now a medium security slash low security prison.
I thought it wasn't even functional anymore. It just looks spooky.
It's the big one that used to like, how is
I think al Capone back in the day. It's over
there by the music store and the really good taco shop. Yeah,
some of the best tacos in town. Oh yeah. It
was the second federal penitentiary that was ever created in
(01:52):
this country, right in our fair city. Yeah, because back
then Atlanta didn't have the political juice to make a nimbrgument.
Not in my backyard argument. For a time, it was
also home to someone the media dubbed the world's most
dangerous prisoner. Will get into that as well, and uh, personally,
I think that's a little bit more of a media
(02:14):
term than a factual statement. But to answer this question,
we have to go to some strange places. And to
be clear, first we have to focus on the US
and this episode, and with your help, folks, we can
expand to other continents in future shows. And with that mind,
here are the facts. Who there's a lot of people
(02:38):
locked up more and more and more, it seems, uh,
not just in the US, but in the world, there's
a If you're feeling like you're not depressed enough when
you tuned into this episode, please check out something called
the World Prison Population List. They survey two hundred and
twenty three different prison systems in countries and territories over
(03:00):
these possessions across the planet. They found that there are
more than ten point three five million people incarcerated throughout
the world on record. So that's caveat that doesn't count
a bunch of stuff, as we'll see. Yeah, and most
of most of those prisoners that are counted there are
in the US, so we've gone around two point to million. Yeah,
(03:23):
that means that statistically, odds are in favor of the
world's most dangerous prisoner being here in the States. That's
just the math. But that you know, it's not to
say other countries are not without horrific problems. The report
goes on to shout out a country at least I
wasn't expecting. Yeah, and uh, it comes from a country
(03:45):
that I was personally not even aware of, called Satchels,
which has the highest prison population rate in the world.
According to the report. You sided previously um with seven
nine per one hundred thousand of its total population incarcerated.
So basically, it's one of those places where, like several
places in the US, if you live there, you probably
(04:07):
know someone who's been to prison, if you haven't been
to prison yourself. Yeah, and it's it is a pretty
small country. It's off the it's in the East Indian Ocean,
off the eastern coast of the African continent. And the
population is about one hundred thousand, four forty seven people.
(04:28):
So not the biggest place, right. There are cities that
are much larger than than the entire population in the country.
But still, Matt, your point holds true. Uh, and I
love that you point out this is this reality in
some parts of the United States, right, especially historically disadvantaged communities.
(04:49):
Nothing occurs in a vacuum. There are a lot of
intergenerational structural things that lead people to a higher likelihood
of imprisonment. And these global statistics, says we said, they
sadly miss a lot of information. They don't account for
black sites. Remember those? How the news just stopped carrying
about those amid the War on Terror? Uh? What is
(05:13):
a black site? It's a cool name for a horrible thing. Oh,
it's a place that generally an intelligence organization outfit, maybe
in concert with a military or just a military itself,
they put together in secret to secret away prisoners, usually
prisoners of war, prisoners of a major conflict. And the
(05:33):
key there is that they're off the books, allowing them
to perhaps operate outside of the bounds of accepted methods.
Let's just say entertainments and forms of enhanced interrogation, because
it's it's usually an information gathering. That's the purpose, right,
It's to gather information from enemy combatants. And check out
(05:54):
our episodes on torture if you're still not depressed enough.
Whether or not torture works, enhanced interrogation is such a
such a fatuous term. I mean, it's like it's like
calling punching somebody a vigorous caress. Enhanced interrogation is torture
in many cases. And whether or not you believe torture
(06:18):
does work, it's important to be honest and call it
what it is. Uh it look, even in the legally
sanctioned prison systems across the world, I think everybody can
agree the vast majority of those are broken in one
way or another. I mean, I'll never forget the first
(06:39):
time I saw, uh, interior photos of some Scandinavian prisons
right where where people are honestly, you know, not to
diminish the fact that they're locked up. People are honestly
having a higher standard of living then a lot of
(06:59):
folks the United States. It's just a fact. If you
have you got you guys have seen those pictures, right,
They got PlayStations, they get they have the right to
cook all all sorts of stuff. So prisons are very
much not created equally. If you want to think of
famous broken prisons, think of some South American countries where
(07:20):
gangs more or less run the prisons. They're supposed to
imprison them now and then. And this some of this
is a numbers game. I found one thing, uh that
was of interest fromen some research for American Political Science
Review found that in a prison in Rio de Janeiro
(07:42):
in Brazil, there were one thousand, four hundred prisoners. Guess
how many prison officials worked there. Okay, no, you want
to make it, I'm gonna say a hundred. The answer
is six. Wow. I really thought I was jokingly under
(08:05):
under selling the tw Wow. Uh did you guys hear
about the I think it's the Maryland prison system where
there was a group called the Black Guerrilla Family and
they had essentially infiltrated the guards within like three or
four different facilities, and they were essentially a gang was
(08:25):
running the prisons to some extent. There were over two
hundred officials who worked for the prison system. They got
charged in twenty nineteen, I think, um, but two hundred
officials were doing it. They were just bringing in contraband
basically doing things for the gangs inside the prison and
(08:47):
outside the prison. It's nuts. That is that that might
be an episode. I heard of Black Gorilla, but I
hadn't heard of this situation. Matt. This is the first
time learning about this. For me, that's fascinating, and uh,
it could be illustrative of other other things on the horizon.
You know, there's something that we have never done an
(09:11):
episode on partially just because of the gruesomeness of it.
But South African prisons are often run by a criminal
series of criminal organizations called numbers gangs and how okay,
so we haven't done this on air. It's uh, it's brutal.
(09:34):
Two to give you just a taste of some of
the regular activities. Uh, these gangs used to enforce the
rule on the prison system. Uh, it is a known
punishment when someone steps out a line to have an
HIV positive attacker sliced the buttocks of the victim and
(09:59):
then assault them. Oh yeah, then that's just one thing.
So it's it's very brutal. And again, the the government
of South Africa has not had a lot of luck
tampi down on that broken system. And then of course
there's the United States prison system here is a multibillion
(10:20):
dollar business. When UH, private prisons came under fire, they
smoothly transition to detaining undocumented populations. And the prison system
itself is clearly descended directly from the days of slavery.
It's true, okay, but so we can all agree prison
(10:41):
systems have problems. But on the other hand, there's no
denying it. Most people are good when given the opportunity
to be so. But some people just can't be allowed
to mingle with the general public. They just cannot they're
too dangerous. Yeah, we're talking about murderers, serial assaulters, um
(11:04):
names that you may recognize like Pedro Lopez, the Monster
of the Andes or John Wayne Gacy, you know, the
clown guy that kind of ruined clowns for everybody, UM
and the MA in America anyway. Lopez, by the way,
that dude, every time I hear that name, see it
written down, I just want to fight things. Hundreds hundreds
(11:27):
of children and uh. He was in our Uncaught serial Killer,
one of our unconst serial Killer episodes, because he had
been released from an Ecuadorian prison in August of ninety
four and then re arrested instantly as an illegal immigrant
and handed over the border to Columbia, and then he
(11:52):
was held there in a hospital until where he was
declared sane, released on the equivalent of a fifty dollar bail,
and no one knows what happened to him since now
both Gaycy is dead thankfully, UM Lopez is probably dead
(12:14):
at this point. But we have to ask who are
the most dangerous prisoners today? Will start in the US
afterward from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Well,
(12:34):
given all that there's not really just what, there's unfortunately
a long list of candidates. There are as many candidates
for most dangerous prisoner as there are podcast, which means
a lot. Yeah. Yeah, Well, let's let's start with this
(12:55):
guy that I found on some random websites, and Ben,
you found him on some better websites. Dude named Tom
Silverstein Thomas Silverstein. And it's fascinating that he's listed as
one of the most dangerous prisoners because he doesn't seem
like a particularly good fellow. But he also doesn't seem
like somebody that prison officials would be terrified of, except
(13:20):
for one action that he took right also known as
Terrible Tom Uh. Until his death in twenty nineteen, this
guy was called the most dangerous prisoner in the States
or in the world, but it was this stood out
as well met to me. I don't know if the
title makes sense, because he was called this primarily due
(13:43):
to a couple of things, the murder of a guard UH,
the his membership and leadership of the Arian Brotherhood, a
white supremacist prison gang, and the length of his incarceration.
He was locked up for forty two years until he
died on May eleven, nineteen, and for thirty six of
(14:05):
those years he was in solitary confinement in the super
max UH. And this means that if you're in this
solitary confinement, you are by yourself for twenty three hours
a day, So for thirty six years. Yeah, one hour
in what you could call a yard, yep, and a
(14:25):
couple of rides. I think to Atlanta because he stayed
in the when it was a super max prison in Atlanta.
He stayed there for a while in solitary. Then he
went to that one we're going to talk about a
d X Florence, a d X, Yeah, And he began
his criminal career with a series of armed robberies in
the nineteen seventies. He had a total of three to
(14:48):
four victims, and Folks, if you follow true crime, you
know that that pales in comparison to the amount of
murders committed by others in the exact same US prison system. Uh,
he was definitely a bastard, but he was probably never
the world's most dangerous prisoner. And honestly, calling him that
(15:10):
lends a sense of importance that we don't think he deserves.
It doesn't make me wonder how much outside influence he
was able to have because he's in solitary confinement, right,
but surely he can make phone calls or something. And
I just wonder if he was ever able to influence
the actions of other, perhaps gang members that were outside
(15:31):
of the prison or in prison if he was allowed
to communicate. Yeah, that's one of the things that makes
make someone a dangerous prisoner, right. Uh and that's a
great question, Matt. So the thing is though, that after
he murdered, correction officer named Merle Klutz c l U
(15:53):
T T S in the entire system said, look, we
can't it give this guy the death penalty because he
he got solitary, got life. Essentially, he's going to die
in prison, but we can't kill him, so we're going
to make his life a living hell. That's a quote
from a book about Leavenworth. Uh. They weren't really afraid
(16:17):
of him, They simply despised him with good reason. But
so okay, so does he quote unquote deserve that title? Again?
We think it's media branding, But make no mistake, there
are monsters behind bars all across the world, and we
have to ask ourselves, how do we determine who the
most dangerous are? Is it simply the number of people killed, injured,
(16:41):
or assaulted by a single individual, or do we try
and guess at the potential harm that could occur if
those folks are walking free. That's what law enforcement agencies
tend to do. That's what they've struggled with when it
comes to sentencing terrorists suspects for example. Right, well, and
I think to understand and this distinction, Um, there are
(17:01):
so many factors that go into it. So I think, uh,
it's a good idea to explore kind of a shortlist
of several of the most dangerous prisoners instead of you know,
laser focusing in on just one. Because in the US,
the most dangerous prisoners are held in a place called
a d X florence. Um. A d X florence is
(17:22):
intended as a temporary kind of holding facility to teach
the most high risk prisoners kind of how to It's
weird to think, you know, because prison, in theory is
meant to acclimate folks back to society. But this is
like a prison meant to acclimate folks to regular prison
(17:42):
because they're not even built for that that, you know,
because the idea there is they would just upset the
whole order of things if they were introduced into you
know what they call in oz gen pop. Yeah, if
they were, if they were in gen pop, if they
were in GP, then they would so okay us right,
the ideas people would die, uh, And the weird thing
(18:04):
about a d X is, even though it's supposed to
be as as you described it, in all a kind
of way point, a stopover, there are criminals there who don't,
who don't make it out and never will their long
time residents of the facility, because they have this potential
to inspire new criminals to direct crimes like you were
(18:26):
talking about, Matt, if they're allowed to communicate in any
way with people outside of the walls, right, and they're
they're outside communications are intensely monitored. You know, you could
say this this scary thing. You could say these individuals
that were about to discuss have an infectious evil. It's
(18:46):
a contagious thing, and that makes it almost sounds supernatural, right,
but it is incredibly dangerous, or at least that's the
rationale for isolating them. And again, you know, there's an know,
there's an entire uh discourse about how those individuals should
be treated or detained. Should they simply be executed? Right?
(19:09):
Should they be kept alive? The great expense to the
taxpayer is solitary confinement a cruel and unusual punishment, right,
And that's the interesting thing to here, is that one
would think typically the most egregious of crimes and and
and the folks who would be considered the most dangerous
(19:29):
would be executed. But there are oftentimes extenuating circumstances and
legal loopholes, etcetera that caused that to not be a thing.
Whatever your position is on the death penalty, it does happen.
It is legal in many parts of the world, including
the United States. Let's get into the curious case of
this first person we're going to discuss, because he fits
(19:51):
some of the things we're talking about, but he also
like breaks the mold a little bit because well, let's
just get into it. A man named Umar Abdul Mutalab.
This is a Nigerian man that you likely remember. We
talked about this on the show while back. This was
big news here in the US. UM. You may know
someone as the underwear bomber. That was a phrase that
(20:16):
was banded about on news all over the place. This
is a person who is supposedly connected to al Qaida.
I guess was connected to al Qaeda, But how deep
that connection was. I don't think I've ever been told
by any news outlet, UM, because that's probably information that's
being kept quiet. But he's currently serving four life sentences.
(20:38):
M M. Yeah, and nobody died, that's the thing, right,
So there's stuff that there's definitely stuff they don't want
us to know about, perhaps the connections and and the
liability that having this person out in the world would cause.
I mean, obviously that this attempted bombing is enough reason enough,
But there does there there there does seem to be
(21:00):
information that we maybe don't have. But but he's the
human being that strapped on the explosives and got on
the plane and attempted to blow the plane up and
himself right, So to me, that means he's not at
all a mastermind. He is a tool, a utensil that
was being brandished by some some organization, likely al Qaeda.
(21:22):
So like, what why is he so dangerous though? Is
it just because they could use him again if you
ever got out right? Likely? Um So, So for the
time being, he is in the super maximum UH facility
at least partially because of those questions that we're talking about,
that kind of linger about the amount of support that
he had from a larger terrorist organization in the form
(21:46):
of al Qaeda. Um. While he was, as you said, Matt,
much more of a tool, a trigger man, if you will,
um would be suicide bomber. He was certainly not the
brain of the operation. Right, Yeah, he's thirty five as
we record this episode today. So he's a young man
(22:09):
whose life unfortunately is over, you know. And that's not
to you know, that's not to defend those actions at all.
It's just a waste of a life because he attempted
to murder two hundred and eighty nine people. And you
know this, there's this thing personally, I don't love it
(22:30):
when when the media gives these sorts of singular criminals nicknames,
because it leads to you know, it leads to various
production companies, producers I'm not going to name exploiting the
situation and doing so under the guys of helping somehow. Right,
(22:54):
the information needs to be out there, but we also
need to understand co modification of these criminals by giving
them a name like a nickname. Isn't an entirely ethical
thing to do. Ryan Murphy Zodiac, No, No, you didn't
do that name, Matt. You did a deep dive, kick
(23:17):
ass exploration of very important and still unsolved mystery. Well,
I certainly said throughout the show so he said he
said it with gusto and uh and the level of headedness. Also,
no one knows that name. We know the underwear bomber's name.
(23:37):
No one knows who the Zodiac killer was. So that's
a different case you think you did. And I'm specifically
also referring to this very divisive Jeffrey Dahmer series has
really got the Internet going nuts. And you know, my kid,
who's thirteen, says a lot of her peers quote unquote,
(24:00):
who she doesn't particularly care for in middle school, are
in fact romanticizing this guy because of this American horror
story treatment of his life. And there is almost a
sense of creating empathy for this person through this dramatization.
And you know, the producers claim, oh no, it's giving
(24:21):
voice to the victims, and you know, we're doing it
through the perspective of the victims. But in many cases,
when you put kind of a star like this, whatever
the kid's name is, Um who plays him. He's not
a kid, but you know I'm talking about he's in
all the American Kevin Peters, you know, it does kind
of put him in the focus. And you know, also
(24:42):
apparently there's a real Um affection for Patrick Bateman, you
know in American Psycho by a lot of these kids
in middle school, which is weird to me, um because
American horror story and that whole kind of salacious treatment
of horrific you know, crimes and such UH is something
that is kind of geared towards that age set, even
(25:03):
if they wouldn't come out and say it, well, there's
I mean, there's that moribund fascination with the misfortune of others,
you know, UH, and and the idea, the folklore that
surrounds UH criminals in the United States is an old
part of the culture. I mean, it's weird to say
(25:23):
old part of the culture for such a young country.
But you know, Dillinger was deified, right, Bonnie and Clyde
were romanticized. This is something that happens in the United States.
So this this guy, abdul Matalab is not gonna is
not gonna see a day outside of jail for the
(25:45):
rest of his life or prison, excuse me. And it's
because of those connections. If you look at the story,
you'll see that eyewitness reports name folks who assisted in
his attempted attack and then just faded off. The radar
and are possibly quite possibly still out there active somehow.
(26:05):
And if you are in counter terrorism or law enforcement,
that's a haunting thing, right, because those guys are not
the type of people to say, oh, it didn't work out,
I guess now I'll take up photography or dressage or something.
Uh that's the one with the horses, right, Yeah, that's
(26:26):
the one with the horses. Step daintily. Yeah, they're not
getting into that. They've already decided what they want to do,
and that's a so that connection. We see that with
another example, James Marcello, the purported head of the Chicago outfit,
which is uh mafia in Chicago. This guy participated in
(26:46):
the murders of at least eighteen people and a lot
of classic mob stuff, extortion and bribery. He's in there.
Are you talking about Jimmy, Jimmy de Man Marcelo or
Little Jimmy. That's antis Well, it's interesting because we're kind
of talking about categories here. We've got your terrorists, you know,
we've got your your serial killer types. We've got your
(27:09):
sort of low level not low level, but maybe more
lone wolf kind of aggravated cereal assaulters and criminals that
you know are just bad folks. Then you have your
organized crime connected folks. Yet there are categories, So I'm
glad you point that out and all because for each
of these people were naming, there are minimum well for
(27:31):
most of them, there are minimum dozens of other examples
that are quite similar. So James Marcello old school Chicago Mafia.
Weirdly enough, like even though he was described often by
law enforcement as the mob boss of the area, UH
insiders and some other folks would later go on to
(27:51):
paint him as a figurehead and they would say, look,
he was the face, but the day to day operations
were run by other people. It also begs the question of, like,
are these incarcerations sort of fall guy situations where it's
taking it's sort of like, see, we did a thing,
we we we were fixing it. You know, we're we're
putting away the bad guys, but they're honestly just the
(28:14):
bad guys that were the lowest hanging fruit that they
can then use as a symbolic act of a bigger,
you know, solution that maybe isn't actually being implemented, right,
almost like paying tribute to this system. Oh no, you
got our boss. I guess we have to take ups
(28:35):
so right to go to for reformed criminals. You heard
it here. Uh, but this is the thing. So if
you um, if you follow news about organized crime, then
you'll recognize Marcello as one of the top people convicted
in this huge racketeering case in two thousand seven, The
(28:56):
Family Secrets, it's called. Two years later, he gets sentenced
to the Long Ride life in prison, right, so you
know he's at the point where he might ride the
Lightning or take the Long Ride, and they sent him
to death the long Way, and it's Ride the Lightning
the like electric chair or is that it's even like
(29:17):
as a metallic album called Ride the Lightning, And I
don't know if it was on the cover of the album.
There was definitely a very popular T shirt where it
was like a skeleton kind of in an electric chair,
you know, being zapped. For some reason, I had it
associated with drug use. I don't know why. That's the
Dragon Chase, the Dragon Ride the Lightning. I made up
(29:39):
Take the Long Ride because it is brutal. It's not
as brutal in Japan. In Japan, I think we talked
about this in the past. When you get a death sentence.
They don't tell you when you're going to die. You
were just imprisoned, and then once at some point, maybe
a few maybe a few years, maybe a decade, they
(30:03):
come for you and they hang you. That's the Green Mile, right, No, No,
was the Green Mile the walk to the to the
to the lights out situation? Oh? Yeah, yeah, the yeah,
the Green Mile was in Stephen King's novel That was
the walk. Uh. And then Tom Waits has a song
called Walking Spanish, which is about the same thing. And this. Okay,
(30:27):
so this guy, like we said, contagious, right, the connections.
He's considered dangerous because he's deep with organized crime. He's
not a lone wolf. Right. If he gets out, there's
serious concern that he would be able to sow some
more chaos. Interestingly enough, he may not be imprisoned for
(30:48):
the long ride. Two years ago he filed a petition
in federal court to have that life sentence tossed out
due to his age. He probably will die in prison.
But it was just to get resentenced, right, yeah, yeah,
it wasn't. It wasn't let me out. And here will
pause for a word from our sponsor and return with
(31:09):
some more examples of incredibly dangerous people in prison, and
the stories just get more complicated by the way we've returned. Uh,
this is a this example is a little bit similar
(31:31):
to it has commonalities at least with Marcello, but it's
uh different, It's much more complicated. We're talking about the
former leader of the Gangster Disciples, Larry Hoover. You may
recognize him from uh, some songs by your favorite artist.
You may recognize him from various documentaries, also various controversies. Currently,
(31:57):
Hoover is serving six life sentences and his criminal career, well,
his entire life may well be its own episode. He's
considered actively dangerous because he fooled the system. Actually this
is true, and his crimes did not stop when he
was incarcerated. He was doing what you were describing, Matt.
(32:19):
He's he's a quintessential example of touching the outside and
having power while being physically, uh physically bounded in the system.
He directed the Disciples and grew them from prison all
the way through the nineteen nineties. But there are a
lot of caveats along the way. I think, oh yeah,
(32:42):
I mean, well, one of the biggest ones is that
if if you listen to Hoover himself. He says, hey,
I don't you know, I don't run anything with the
Disciples anymore. Come on, I'm not the leader, which I guess.
If you believe him, that's great, But if you don't,
then he could potentially to be doing it again. And
that's one of the reasons that he's considered too dangerous
(33:04):
to be allowed with any kind of freedom, even though
he's he's well, he's well old, right, seventy and he's
in his seventies. He's well old in it and yeah,
it turns seventy two at the end of this November.
And because of his ability to recruit new members during
his sense and incarceration, his opportunities to keep in touch
(33:28):
with people on the outside UH, and his promotion UH
for for a while of of non violence and community service,
he started being called King Larry, and he became arguably
more powerful in prison than ever he was as a freeman.
(33:49):
But it turned out, at least from the perspective of
law enforcement agencies, that when he changed Gangster Disciples to
growth and development and started doing a lot of community
work or directing a lot of it, law enforcement said
it was a front and he actually fooled them by
(34:10):
growing a criminal enterprise under the guise of public reform,
kind of like Gus Freeing making a fast food empire. Yeah,
you could kind of consider this a fool me once
type situation um, with prosecutors and law enforcement convinced that
he's going to continue to recruit and grow organized crime
(34:31):
rings if he's released, despite you know, him seemingly coming
clean and changing his ways early stating that he has yes, yes, yes,
And it really is a very divisive issue and a
conversation within you know, I mean the framework of all
of this stuff surrounds what is the prison system? How
(34:52):
does it function? Uh? Is it broken? You know, is
it in need of reform? Um? At the very least, yes,
it does in need of reform. But it's a difficult
thing to do because of so much infrastructure and place
and legacy policies and just the way these facilities are run. Uh,
(35:13):
there's a critical mass at play that is hard to
kind of stop or reverse of course. Correct. Yeah. And
in our conversation we had off Air along with our
their pal Paul Mission Control. Uh, you know, it brought
up the fact that a perfect society is one that
does not have prisons, does not have chains, you know,
(35:34):
And that's why it's important for us to open up
when we talked about this stuff by saying, yeah, in
many many ways, prison systems are broken. You know. It's
it's true, and it's undeniable. And anybody who says otherwise, UM,
I just can't agree with him. So but I, well,
then don't I kind of say otherwise? And maybe I'm wrong?
(35:57):
And that's what I want to have a bigger conversation
with you guys about the I think about the that
show La Monstra and Matt Graves of the host that
we talked to, and that particular case where, yeah, Mark
de trou was in prison for assaulting women and capturing
them and holding them and essentially imprisoning them and assaulting them.
(36:19):
He went to prison for that for a little while,
and then they let him out because he had he
was on his good behavior, and then he did the
exact same thing to other women and killed them. I
think I think his I think his master's let him out, honestly, Um,
but ultimately, what do you do with him if you
don't have chains? I see what you're saying, Yeah, but
(36:40):
that to that I would respond, a perfect society is
also one that does not have those people, so that,
you know, like the old argument of utopia, right, utopia,
the definition of utopia is a perfect thing comma that
does not exist. And typically when we see topias in
(37:01):
like you know, science fiction, usually they're kind of dystopian
utopias that's involved drugging the population in some way or
having people be complacent like in Brave New World or
what have you, um, or just controlling people's ideas, you know,
and uh and kind of you know, having people be
(37:21):
these docile chess pieces you know of the state. And
when you have autonomy and when you have free will, um,
you're gonna have some bad apples. You know that that
shouldn't necessarily mean well, shouldn't have free will. That's very
loaded in and of itself. And in another conversation, entirely
like in Clockwork Orange, you know, you have this whole
scenario where the bad actor that you know, Alex de
(37:43):
Large is put into this program that programs him, deprograms
him from behaving badly, but then it also essentially robs
him of his free will and makes him this kind
of pathetic um you know, pawn um that that that
doesn't have control over his own autonomy at all, which
is basically almost worse than being imprisoned. I guess, I
(38:06):
don't know. It's it's a different kind of prison, prison
of the mind. And and I love the Kuber adaptation,
but I like, if you want the full story, read
the book because last chapter, yeah, the chapter that was missing.
It's it's now in the American editions as well. Finally,
but but yeah, this is this is an ongoing conversation.
(38:27):
I'd love to recommend if anybody likes TED talks. Sometimes
they're a little bit utopian, to be honest, but do
check out a great TED talk, What a World Without
Prisons Could look Like by Diana Van Buren. And I
think it addresses a lot of the points we're talking
about now well. And Larry Hoover is a great example
of everything we're talking Yeah, yeah, yeah, because some some
(38:49):
ordinary citizens, particularly in Chicago, Illinois, see Hoover as an
inspiration because of his promotion and community service, empowerment, emphasize education,
discouraging violence, you know, from like inter gang warfare and
so on. Uh, his followers don't always align with those values,
(39:12):
but people still insist, you know, his heart is in
the right place, and that's why you hear people, Um,
that's why you hear people pushing for his release. As
a matter of fact, earlier this year, in July, he
sent a letter to a federal judge asking for reduction
on his life sentence, saying, Hey, I have changed, I
(39:32):
have grown. Uh. He made the same request last year,
you know. So this this evolution is also another episode
of its own. But we can't end. We're talking about
folks are regarded as dangerous. One person we have to
end on is Theodore Ted Kaczynski, former math professor, domestic terrorist.
(39:55):
His name is familiar to and his nickname is familiar
to followers a true crime and conspiracy alike. He was
a rec loose for a long time. He sent mail
bombs to university researchers for decades. And essentially it's because
if you read his manifesto, he's very concerned about advancements
(40:16):
and science. The problem with this guy isn't that he's
also brilliant. We're talking super villain level smart. The FBI
admits as like they admit it when they talk about him. Yeah,
here's a quote that comes from FBI dot gov website
you should pruse if you want to. It's fun. It's
like testing limits. Are they gonna track me? What if
(40:37):
I go on their own website? Let's find out here
we go. Quote. How do you catch a twisted genius
who aspires to be the perfect anonymous killer, who builds
untraceable bombs and delivers them to random targets, who leaves
false clues to throw off authorities, who lives like a
rec loose in the mountains of Montana and tells the
no One of his secret crimes. That's a real great
(40:59):
hypothetical question there. Did they go on to answer it?
They do. No, that's just that's the whole thing. They
gave up because they couldn't answer it. They did, they did,
They did eventually answer it. They go into detail about
how they cooperated with other agencies for the better part
of twenty years to track down this person that they
(41:20):
called the Union bomber short for University bomber, it's a portmanteau.
And they only caught him when they did something very extraordinary.
He kind of he led to his own arrest because
he saw himself as an agent of ideology, which will
be important in Part two of this series. He sent
(41:41):
a thirty five thousand word essay explaining what he saw
as his motives and what he saw as, uh, all
the wrongs of modern society. The FBI did something they
don't usually do. And you know this if you have
ever been in the world a true crime. They published
(42:02):
this manifesto and this because they were at a loss
and this manifesto, like they may have never caught him
if he hadn't said this thing and they hadn't published it,
because it led to Kazynski's brother seeing it and saying,
I think you should look at my sibling for this.
His writing style is similar. Here are some other examples
(42:24):
of things that he has written. And and then the
brother cooperated to try to help find this guy. April third,
they arrest him. They go through his cabin where he's
living in a a pretty primitive life except for you know,
bomb making technology. Yeah, I mean it's interesting too. This
(42:45):
is really kind of the fodder for serial killer lair
kind of vibes, you know, with all of the Seven
also in you know the New Batman, the Batman with
the Riddler, uh, tiny handwritten you know the text in journals,
thousands of journals, handwritten pages um. That included things like,
(43:07):
you know, bomb making components and all of that, and
descriptions of crimes and also a live bomb ready to
be put in the post. And then of course the
the rabbit hole about his psychologue, his participation in psychological
studies in the second year at Harvard that goes pretty deep.
(43:29):
Do check that out. He was involved in a experiment
led by a Harvard psychologist called Henry Murray, and this
was described as purposely brutalizing the participants. And this, you know,
you can see a lot of people linking this to
(43:49):
government funded experiments with mind control, a similar similar that's
the idea, because the CIA was active in that for
a while. And check out Operation Midnight Climax um you
hosted by our own Noel Brown for more information on
some aspects of that. I don't think it gets the
(44:11):
Kazynski study, but but it's mentioned in passing. But yeah, yeah,
but it's definitely not the crux of it. But we
do know that these kinds of things did take place,
and that the CIA operated fast and loose, you know,
with people's lives. Absolutely no question about that. Yeah. And
(44:31):
also just to point something out, in both Russia and
the United States and the Soviet Union and the United States.
I should say, uh, they figure it out collectively that
the easiest way to assassinate someone and make it look
just enough like an accident is to say they fell
from a window. The finisht rate. Yes, God, I love
(44:55):
this language. You know, No one finish strates. They just
definish strate. Uh so this so this thing, what we're
saying is there's a lot to Kacynski. And when they
came in, just as you describe, No, they find this
thing that looks like the layer of someone who is
mentally not well. Forty thousand handwritten journal pages documenting philosophy,
(45:20):
documenting bomb making experiments in progress, descriptions of UNI bomber crimes.
Also a bunch of like random bomb components laying around,
some of which, by the way, it would just look
like household junk if you didn't know how to put
it together. This is sort of um anarchist cookbook stuff, right,
(45:42):
And I would recommend reading that, reading that tone or
a version of it if you get access. You might
have to, uh find the right counterculture in the basement
of the right bookstore. Right, that's right, vintage books, Go
check them. Out they're in. I guess shamblely maybe Brooke
caven whatever you can figure out. In Atlanta. Uh, guys,
(46:02):
you know what, they didn't mention the authorities when they
rated that old cabin. They didn't mention all the zodiac
ciphers that they found in there. I'm just joking. I'm
just you might not be joking because they still haven't
mentioned it. So Uh. They also importantly found one live
(46:24):
bomb packed and ready to go in the post. He
doesn't put up you know, he doesn't say he's changed,
he doesn't say um any kind of mitigated stuff. He
pleads guilty in January, and then fast forward last year,
he leaves a d X. He's transferred to the Federal
(46:45):
Medical Center in North Carolina. Uh. The officials involved did
not disclose why he was transferred to a to a
primarily medical facility there, but in a letter to a
pinpal again all the communications are closely monitored unlista with lawyers,
he indicated he's suffering from terminal cancer. So if you
(47:09):
are the authorities, there are a couple ways to look
at this. You could say compassionate release would let him
die of freeman or with some validity you could argue
he has even less to lose. And this is the
same facility we talked about earlier in the episode that
has sort of meant to acclimate the most dangerous and
(47:31):
unhinged prisoners too regular you know, prison population UM and
Paul Mission Control off air pointed out that this facility
a d X and Florence has been the subject of
of many controversial acts and accusations UM, including you know,
(47:53):
the proliferation of of of suicides there. Uh, and then
the idea that they aren't actually identifying truly mentally ill
um inmates or patients and treating them appropriately. So again
there there comes that breakdown in how the prison system
operates and how these folks are treated. Um, is it humane?
(48:15):
You know? Is this more in the vein of of
of a black site than than we might like to admit,
you know what I mean? I mean, you know, I'm
I'm being hyperbolic a little bit there, but I don't
think so. It's a place to put people that whatever
that authority structure is believes are too dangerous to be
(48:35):
you know, even walking around living in a certain situation
with other inmates. It's yeah, well too to the point
to about um obscene treatment that you're talking about. No,
people who did not successfully take their own lives to
d d X were often punished for attempting to do so,
which is not quite the right approach, to say the
(48:58):
very least. And there have been a lot of lawsuits
regarding what we're describing about about mental health. And this
This leads us to one of the most disturbing things
about these conversations. A lot of a lot of these
conversations hinge on asking the right question. Right when we
(49:20):
ask who are the world's most dangerous prisoners or who
are the most dangerous prisoners in the US, we have
to ask why? Right? What? What creates this? Because again,
nothing exists in a vacuum, you know, and it like,
let's say someone's young, they do something violently stupid, like
(49:41):
they try to rob someone because they want some extract cash, right,
or they want to get initiated into some sort of
social group, and they get caught, they get convicted, they
go to prison for several years unless their parents are
well connected. I hate to phrase it that way, but
that is often the reality. You know, That's not an opinion.
Access to high high level, high quality UM lawyers and
(50:06):
legal assistance makes all the difference. Um, we know how
people can get out of things or get get things
pled down, uh, charges reduced, etcetera. Even something as simple
as traffic cord you know, if you have a good
enough lawyer. So I mean money and uh and privilege
certainly does enter into it, There's no question about it. Um.
(50:26):
But but but to your chicken and egg question, Ben,
this really does lead to a larger question of is
that time incarcerated actually rehabilitative or is it just reinforcing um,
the bad habits that someone already has and preparing them
to just kind of learn how to operate a little
more under the radar once they get out, and just
(50:48):
to smarten up and learn lessons you know, by example
in prison from other you know, craftier criminals or what
have you, right, or get deeper because their forced to
you know, their kid in prison and suddenly they're forced
to group up with someone to posse you up to survive, right,
(51:09):
which requires them to commit uh increasingly criminal acts. It
makes it more likely that there will be restive recidivism,
which is returning to prison in the future. And not
not to mention, I mean those connections made in prison
connect into the outside world, you know. I mean you
get leagued up with a certain group in prison and
they take care of you in prison. That's going to
(51:31):
translate to once you get out and if your life
is over in terms of being in the system. Now, Um,
you can either make a choice to become like a
normy and just work the only type of job that
you can even get, which is going to be low level,
low paying, or are you going to join a criminal
enterprise that's going to allow you to make more money
(51:52):
by continuing to commit criminal acts and do it smarter
with the help of others in the outside world that
you got leaked up with in prison. Yeah, there's this. Uh.
This reminds me of a of a great freestyle from
Fire in the Booth by Uh by a guy named Simba,
and the line that particularly stood out to me talks
about the again the intergenerational issues with who goes to
(52:18):
prison and who gets you know, probation or who gets
pre trial intervention in this country, and the line is
something like, uh, a white man gets slapped on the
wrist and gets a part and that's what happens when
your father went to college with your honor, you know,
like that's I'm just saying because it's it's a really
well written line, but speaking the truth. And if you're
(52:40):
if you're a fan of hip hop, do you check
out Simba. But as you're doing that, stay tuned for
part two of this continuing series. There is one more
aspect of this story. There's a curve ball that we're
throwing at the very end. Speaking of asking the right questions,
(53:00):
how do you define dangerous? In governments around the world,
the most dangerous prisoners are not considered so because of
their violent acts, but because of their ideas. So stay
tuned for the World's Most Dangerous Prisoners Part two, Politics
and Power. Yeah, but what you guys, what about remorse?
Like there's there are killers out there that shows zero
(53:22):
remorse for killing other human beings. Like I mean, I mean,
we were talking about organized crime, We're talking about problems
with economic inequality that lead to that kind that kind
of connection that y'all are mentioning. But I think that radar. Yeah, Like,
what what do you do with that? I mean, I
think we got I don't think it's as simple as
(53:43):
one blanket answer, right, Like, what do you do with
somebody like that or prisons good or our prisons bad.
It's it's it's so much more complicated. Yeah, well back
to chicken and egg. It's a nature nurture thing too,
where it's like if you're predisposed, you know, psychologically to
violent acts, which we know is a thing. You know,
there are certain types of brain chemistry or or or
(54:06):
issues you know, malformations or what have you uh in
people's psychology that can predispose them to the stuff, and
then it's further enhanced or exacerbated by nurture or lack thereof,
or being in a situation where it is like reinforced
by either a parent or you know, lack of attention
(54:26):
from a parent, or falling in with the wrong or
right you know, perfect storm kind of crowd. Um. So,
again to to your point earlier than about utopia or
to the perfect society has when without prisons, you can't
fix people's brain chemistry. There's there's nothing, you know, short
of again dosing the water and just having people drugged
(54:49):
into complacency. There's nothing we can do to to make
sure that people aren't born withinnate deficiencies in the in
them that caused them to to be this way. Let
me add one more thing here, because this is let's
go macro right. Uh. This is something a lot of
people don't consider. If you have made it through this
(55:09):
episode and you're still like, gosh, I wish I was
more depressed. The human brain. If you're a human and
you're listening to this, the human brain is not evolved.
Two function in the societies that human civilization has created.
In the nineteen seventies, there were four billion people on
the planet. As of November, there are eight billion. It
(55:33):
is doubled right, humanity. Whatever you think about good or
bad apples, and obviously the worst apples are red delicious apples.
I said it. They're just not popping whatever you think
there are. There are hard limits to the number of
people that your brain can consider people. That is why
(55:55):
those in power commit such atrocities and sleep us fine
at night. Uh. And the reason that I say utopian,
the reason I say like a perfect society is one
without prisons, is because a perfect society doesn't exist. I mean,
what are you gonna say North Sentinel Island is a
perfect society. It's probably not. There are probably some people
(56:17):
there who are just jerks, you know, real pills. Uh,
and I don't. I don't think any of us know
the answers, but I think all three of us are
bringing up good points, and we'd love for you to
be a part of this conversation. Yeah, I think we
would love to hear from listeners, like, especially if you
if you hold a hard line belief one way or
(56:38):
the other, prisons are absolutely necessary. We need them and
this is what we do with people who are dangerous
or and I didn't I didn't say they're not necessary.
I said a perfect society wouldn't happen. I just mean
from listener, like, if you're listening and you hold that
belief right, prisons are good, or if you hold the
(57:00):
if all prisons should be like, get rid of them.
We don't need them anymore. I'd love to know, like,
what are solutions to deal with people that collectively we've
decided this person is dangerous? Um? Just what what is
your solution? Restorative justice? Is it, well, you know, is
it some sort of almost sci fi level thing the
punishment fits the crime. Like if you are a McVey
(57:23):
and you bomb, you bomb the location, are you then
sentenced to a thing where you just build? Though? Like
if you for instance, if you bomb, say an abortion clinic,
instead of being put in prison, should be put on
a work detail where you just build preventative care clinics
for the rest of your life. It's that old thing
(57:45):
about like, oh, your your parents caught you smoking a cigarettes,
so they put you in the closet and make you,
hope smoke a whole pack of cigarettes, which is child abuse,
by the way. But you've heard that old, that old chestnut, right,
I mean I have not. Okay, well, man, I don't
know that I ever heard anybody having this happen to them,
but it does seem like an urban legend, the kind
of trope, you know. So as you can tell, this
(58:06):
is one of those explorations where the three of us
end up taking the conversation off air. We're probably this
is probably gonna be one of the things we talked
about when we hang out in person as soon as
one of us brings it up, because I think this,
this dilemma, this Gordian not stays with us, and it
probably will stay with you folks. So please, as Matt said,
(58:29):
reach out to us, let us know your thoughts, let
us know what your what your stances. As you said, man,
particularly if you have a strong one. We want to
hear it. We're not saying that we have the answers.
We're not telling anybody what to think, but this is
and this is just one part of a larger, deeper
(58:50):
dive in the meantime, help us out if you have
the answer, just like we said with a mass shooting deaths,
if you have the answer, right to us, let us
know if you're convinced you have the answer. We want
to be easy to find online. We do want that,
and I think we mainly get there. You can find
us at Conspiracy Stuff on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube Conspiracy
(59:12):
Stuff Show on Instagram. Yes, we have a phone number.
It is one eight three three st d w y
t K. It's a voicemail system. Leave your name and
a message. You've got three minutes. Say whatever you'd like.
Please just make sure to include whether or not we
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you don't like voice messages, you don't like phones like that,
(59:34):
why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(59:59):
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