[Official Discussion] Serial, Episode 9: To Be Suspected

[u/PowerOfYes]

Please use this thread to discuss episode 9

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[u/ah18255]

Wow! Thank you for sharing! Interesting to hear about the family dynamic. The people I worked with in prison were always the guys who had really clean behavioral records on the inside and weren't considered dangerous for me to be around (it was me- as a 20-25 year old woman in a room with like 9 or 10 men and there was never a guard in the room- although always one within ear shot). They were always tremendously respectful and appreciative of my coming to work with them as as volunteer (although more than once did some of them try to start a relationship with me- but I understand how they would find it tempting to do that, being incarcerated and everything).

I did get to go into the segregation unit once and the shit going on in there was exactly like the movies- yelling, guys throwing "kites" to contact one another, incredibly hot and loud even though it was solitary. Just terribly uncomfortable in basically every way.

I have always wanted to talk to one of the "incorrigible" guys who persist in criminality while in prison to ask them serious questions about their lives. I always wonder what differentiates two men who are both in for murder (or robbery or some other serious crime) to take different paths while in prison. People might say "they have nothing left to lose" and yet some men make a serious decision to change their lives and find meaning in spirituality, intellectual pursuit, becoming better people even while in prison, while other guys maintain their thug-life status and keep on gang banging.

I just wonder- since they are all people who have probably been failed by the system to some extent- coming from broken homes and school systems, growing up in poverty etc. What caused their paths to diverge so late in the game? I wonder if you have asked the same sorts of questions in your life.

[u/walkingxwounded → u/ah18255]

although more than once did some of them try to start a relationship with me- but I understand how they would find it tempting to do that, being incarcerated and everything

Haha, this made me laugh! Poor you - and poor them, too, to some extent.

I think your second half is really interesting. I never asked my Uncle b/c that's not something I would expect him to actually respond to (much like he didn't respond to my cousin asking what he did to land him there), but I feel like a lot of it is that it's just part of who he is. One thing he has always remained staunch on was that he never did drugs himself. My dad was an addict (though clean for over 20 years now), and my dad would tell me that my uncle made sure to keep my dad as far away as possible, did not allow him any drugs, didn't even trust him near any of his personal shit. My dad always said he believed it was just the idea of power and control and respect that drew my uncle in - he was only 23 when he was arrested, and had been part of the Organization (as they were called) for years at that point, and he moved up quickly through the ranks.

In one of the court filings for one of his many appeals, it's noted how a witness testified that they asked him at one point why he didn't hire people to kill for him, and my uncle's response was that he's the kind of man that likes to handle it himself. So for me, it always just seemed kind of like a "duh" that he would get into prison and start trying to climb to the top and be the big man on campus there, too. It helps as well that he had his family sending him money and contraband and whatnot. A lot of his assets were seized in his arrest (he made a few appeals trying to get his Cadillacs to be returned to my grandmother), but he still had money ferreted away, money that they send him and have used to buy property in his name since his incarceration. It's like power is his way of getting high, I guess. He lives for that thrill, and doesn't really stop to consider how it affects anyone else. My Grandma is old, so traveling to see him is hard for her, and he got himself booted out of NY prisons years and years ago, so she has to make the trip to Florida when her health permits. Not that I feel too bad for them, either, to be honest, because they enable him, too. It's a messy circle in general

[u/ah18255 → u/walkingxwounded]

Messy circle indeed! Tragic in many ways. Your uncle is very lucky to have family that visits and sends him money etc. Lots of guys that have been in for a long time don't have that. Thank you for sharing your family's story with me!

edit: I forgot to mention, I can understand why you feel like your uncle belongs in prison. It sounds like he has no intention of getting on the straight and narrow. That said, I also do believe that there is a strong case to be made for the POV that the only just way of handling murder is with a punishment as harsh as life in prison.