Ask Layzie about Heroin Addiction/Doing Time In Prison

[CrayZee]

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The movies were usually new releases. I saw Crash, Batman Begins, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and others in prison.

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There should have been a channel that only played Kindergarten Cop. Very reform inspiring movie.

[Blarg]

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I don't agree with you when it comes to child molestation. I don't think people can be cured or reformed of a basic sexual orientation.

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I do think being a child molestor is almost certainly an agony for many of them.

Blarg, I'm curious - when put that way, you make it sound like child molestors are born with an uncurable affliction that forces them to either live their lives in mild agony from not being able to act on their urges, or go to prison. Is that what you believe?

I'm not accusing or making judgements on what you said or anything, it just sounds like a crappy deal for child molestors if that's indeed the case.

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Actually I've read a ton about serial killers and a bit about child molesters and profiling, and I don't think sexual orientation is necessarily set at birth. There is a great deal of political and societal pressure these days to say that, for instance, gay sexual orientation and heterosexual orientation are set at birth or even in the womb, but that's a different story, and at any rate not yet firmly established. More importantly, the idea of sexual orientation being set at birth deals with orientations that I wouldn't classify as dangerous or criminal at all.

Note I'm not claiming to be jack sh*t of an authority on this. But I have read people who have a great deal of knowledge on the development of sexual fixations of people with abnormal psychologies, which is the type of sexuality I would classify people who have sex with children with.

Like a serial killer, this sort of thing is not a sudden switch, but has a long build-up. Young serial killers are very rare, because serial killing is the type of illness that takes a long time to build up, and there are certain things that need to be played out in the development of that pathology. A serial killer is almost "groomed." In the same way, someone who molests children is very rarely a mere opportunist, nor someone who makes a mistake of judgment.

Finding children a suitable object of sexual pursuit is so far from the norm, and requires such a reordering of sexual thoughts, that it simply isn't an option for normal people. Even people with the most bizarre thoughts don't necessarily act them out. Child molesters have a sexual preference for children that is not a matter of accident or weakness, but the result of a sexual orientation that almost without exception takes time to grow. They are typically sexually inadequate and highly disturbed as a result of nurture, not nature. I don't believe child molestors are born at all, though perhaps one might argue that the relative lack of ability to control one's sexual urges has a hormonal and thus likely genetic component. But from my reading, child molestors are almost always created slowly over time, as the result of unfortunate and not terribly likely(thank goodness) processes, and child molesting is not to them exceptional, but the result of a sexuality that is fully developed, but in a misguided direction.

In other words, I don't think just anyone can be a child molestor, or that anyone is born into it. It's a complex process involving mental disease and sexual dysfunction that we couldn't access if we wanted to. Our sexuality is central to the definition of who we are and how we relate to people, and a child molestor can no more change his desire to have sex with children than he can cut off his own head.

Whether he pursues it or not, is another story. However, very few people do not pursue their sexual urges. Even priests, monks, and nuns can find the sexual urge unstoppable. How much more so, then, would a person without nearly such strict moral constraints.

Life is unfair, and I pity child molestors tremendously, myself, because I wouldn't want to be burdened with their sexuality, and I think it's part of a process of mental disease. Life is unbearably cruel sometimes, and there are probably some otherwise quite decent people it burdens with sexual attraction toward children.

Perhaps many will not act it out, as unlikely as people not acting out their sexual orientation may be. But those who do, are people who not only have a sexual orientation but find themselves unable to prevent the natural expression of it. We can imprison them, chastise them, humiliate them, and do whatever we want to them, if we catch them. But we will never change them from being, in their hearts, child molestors. It's beyond their power to change, and beyond our power to change them. You can't repress, or steal from someone, who they are.

Life sucks sometimes.


consider a fixation on children as an appropriate sexual object to be

[Wynton]

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Did you notice that you meet some very nice murders in prison? Most of the murderers were ok and it was the thiefs and such that made life miserable for the staff.

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I'm a criminal defense lawyer and have represented the full spectrum of criminals, from serial killers to white collar criminals. And I also have found that some of the cold-blooded killers to be more pleasant people to deal with.

Quick question of interest: should I start a thread on "ask wynton about criminal defense," for a different angle on these types of questions, or does the current thread (and the one about prosecution) cover it sufficiently?

I can't tell whether people are sick of these threads yet.

[KaneKungFu123]

this isnt debatable: child molesters are mentally ill and can not be rehabilitated.

[KaneKungFu123]

Did you make any weapons? What kind of weapons did you see others making?

[spamuell]

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this isnt debatable: child molesters are mentally ill and can not be rehabilitated.

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Most mentally ill people are cured, if you think that child molesters can't be then you have to back it up better than that.

[Layzie]

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Would it be possible to play it like this: refuse to work. sit in your cell and write/chill. come out only to eat and shower and exercise?

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Yeah, but you'd initially be punished for refusal to work. This is assuming you're in a work style unit. There are plenty of people who don't have jobs.

[Layzie]

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Did you ever meet anyone who genuinely maintained their innocence? Did you believe him?

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Yes, and yes. One guy was in for Grand Larceny and recieving stolen goods. His paperwork said that he was 24 years old and white (he showed it to me). He was 36 and black. He pleaded guilty because his lawyer told him he would likely get a fine and probation. He got 10 years. He was getting mail from high profile lawyers and the ALCU that wanted to take his case for appeal. He probably wasn't completely innocent, but he was wrongfully convicted.

[Layzie]

"What I mean is, one minute you're smoking weed in HS, and then a year or two later you're shooting heroin. If I have that timeline correct."

That's pretty much true, but I progressed to heroin. I started smoking weed, did alot of LSD, then ecstacy, took alot of pills (xanax, klonopin, valium, vicodin, percocet, tylox, MS contin, demerol, dilaudid (weak ones), etc.), did alot of ketamine, mushrooms, DMT, and just about anything else you could think of. The only thing I never got into was coke/crack and meth, because I don't like uppers. I did try them both, however.


"You seem like a smart guy. Now we all know Nancy Reagan is kind of a jackass, but you had to know that heroin was seriously -EV well before you got into it. (An episode of Intervention should clear this up for the uninitiated.)"


As I said before it escalated to me eating entire bottles of crushed up vicodin on a spoon. I met the guy I talked about earlier with the OCs and just loved the opiate high. Eventually I came across heroin, and snorted that until it stopped working. When I discovered that you could shoot OCs, I was shooting OCs and dope very soon after. I of course knew it was bad, but the opiate high is so good it just gets you hooked. I never experienced "dope sickness" until I started using needles. It's hard for me to tell whether or not the large amounts of pills were making me sick, because I always had them so never had a chance to experience a withdrawl from them. Addiction to opiates is not something that you can control, and you stop thinking about how harmful it is to your body.

"Were you just too far down the path of destruction to admit this to yourself? How many of your friends used?"

I was pretty well aware that I was down the path to destruction, but your mind has a way of rationalizing when you're addicted.

Pretty much all of them used, and still do.


"My brother was dealing coke and got popped and the only way he could see getting it together was to leave the state and start over. That was 1987 and he's only been back here once since."

Very smart thing to do. I'm leaving when I finish probation.

[Layzie]

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Is it true that when you meet someone, one of the first questions asked is "what are you in for"?

The Doc

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No. Never just ask a random person what they're in for. This is disrespectful, and could result in you getting hurt. When you get to know someone better they will eventually tell you if they want you to know.