A Snapshot of Serial Killers Behind Bars

Son of Sam: in Sullivan Correctional Facility

David Berkowitz was one of the most famous serial killers of our time. Also known as the "Son of Sam" killer that confessed to the New York murders of 6 people in the late 1970s, is currently serving 6 consecutive life sentences at Sullivan Correctional Facility. After a series of fights with fellow inmates, one of which required 65 stitches to his throat while he was housed at Attica in 1979, Berkowitz eventually transferred to Sullivan, where he then converted to Christianity and began writing journal entries that are now available on his "official" homepage at: http://www.forgivenforlife.com.

When faced with the opportunity of parole in 2002, Berkowitz declined without hesitation. In a New York Times article he is quoted as saying, "I deserve to be in prison for the rest of my life. I can accept that." When responding to comments made by Governor Pataki concerning the governor's fight to keep Berkowitz from parole, Berkowitz noted in his prison journals, "I agree with him that I do not deserve parole, neither am I trying to obtain it." (March 1 prison journals)

Sullivan Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison for males located in Fallsburg, NY. Before his death, serial killer Arthur Shawcross also stayed at Sullivan.

The "Green River Killer" Gary Leon Ridgway: in Walla Walla

Gary Leon Ridgway, considered America's most profilic serial killer for confessing to the murders of 48 Seattle-area prostitutes in the early 1980s, is serving a life sentence in Walla Walla, Washington State, without chance of parole (9 May 2005 Associated Press Newswires). The nickname Green River Killer reflected Ridgway's choice of disposing the bodies in the Green River, a winding waterway located in southeast Kings County, just east of Tacoma. He strangled and methodically placed his victims in "clusters" near landmarks so that he could keep a running tally of them, but because there were so many, he eventually lost track of them.

Walla Walla, the largest of Washington state's three maximum security facilities, has 15 armed guard towers, and is the residence of all death row inmates in the state, where most lifers begin, and end, their sentences. It is home to 2,240 inmates.

At Walla Walla, serious offenders may be housed in one of two units; either "Unit 5," the "Special Housing Unit" section of the prison that imprisons inmates on death row, those with psychiatric problems, and those requiring the services of the protective custody unit, or the Intensive Management Unit (IMU), a maximum custody facility located outside the main institution.

Ridgway is serving time here, at the IMU, a unit that houses 87 of the most dangerous and famous offenders, including those who pose a threat to themselves, others, or the operation of the prison, and many of those serving their time on Death Row. The IMU does not allow its inmates to come in contact with the rest of the institution, and separates them from the rest of the inmates by 150 yards, two fences, and razor wire coils. Inmates in the IMU mostly spend their time in idleness, reading or writing alone. Cells have only a concrete slab with a thin foam mattress, a steel sink, and a light that cannot turn off. Inmates here, unlike those elsewhere in the prison, are required to wear orange prison fatigues.

Concordant with standard "incentive levels" practice, good behaviour and clean cells may mean longer visits and more privaleges, including televisions and radios for purchase. If inmates at the IMU and on death row have proven good behaviour, they may eventually be relocated to Unit 5, which is less stringent in its restrictions, and provides allowances like tobacco products, greater possessions, more family visits, and the possibility of having a cellmate.

According to the News Tribune's research done on the inside of the facility, Walla Walla is "hard time," suffering the most seriously-sentenced inmates to a life of noise, monotony, isolation, and the constant threat of violence. According to one middle-aged killer of two serving time at the prison, if the inmate accepts the fact that he is here indefinitely and that it is the choice of the inmate how he would like to spend it, it perhaps makes the few enjoyable elements of prison life, such as "biscuits and gravy on Saturday mornings," endurable (News Tribune 20 Dec 2003).

For those that wish to make the most of life at "Wally World" by behaving properly, many opportunities exist, such as jobs in welding, baking, cleaning, stamping license plates, making lockers and office furniture out of sheet metal, or simple hobbies, such as painting models, constructing belts and wallets, or designing artwork. Inmates at the prison, including the IMU, may recieve up to 35 cents an hour or up to $55 per month in paid employment. Some jobs, such as those working in the license plate factory, can earn up to $1.10 an hour. According to the News Tribune, popular items purchased with labour earnings include Top Rame and Little Debbie Cupcakes, cassette players, televisions, Playboy and Hustler. Although victim awareness and anger management courses are still available and widely used at the prison, college education is not.

For the Green River Killer, however, many such opportunities are forbidden. According to some inmates within the prison, Ridgway would very possibly be a murder target because of his famed status, and especially since many inmates at the prison who have killed far fewer victims than Ridgway received the death penalty while Ridgway did not. With his plea bargain sentence that saved him from execution, inmates may believe the state did not serve the justice required. Indeed, there was an unsuccessful attempt within the prison to slit Ridgway's throat recently.

It is believed that Ridgway is spending the first years of his sentence confined to an 81-square-foot cell, 23 hours a day, eating alone and exercising alone. He cannot communicate with other inmates face-to-face, and he is restricted to using a speaker on his cell door. Allowed visits with immediate family will be similarly restricted by a wall of plate glass, only one or two hours a week. Besides family, other visitors might include religious leaders or social workers. Like most serial killers housed in protective custody units, Ridgway has to earn his privaleges through good behaviour, although it is doubtful that many of the opportunities open to other inmates will apply to him.

BTK Killer Dennis Rader: 10 life terms in El Dorado Correctional Facility

Dennis Rader, aka BTK Killer for "bind, torture, and kill," began serving his 10 consecutive life sentences at the maximum-security El Dorado Correctional Facility on Friday morning, August 19, 2005. Chained at the ankles, garbed in an orange prison jumpsuit, and staring out the window with tears in his eyes, Rader looked upon the prison that would, if he were assessed as being a security risk, likely be his home for the remainder of his sentence.

Rader spends his days in an 80 square-foot cell, with a foam-covered concrete bunk, one sink, a metal shelf, and a plastic trash can. He spends his one hour of free time a day, in shackles of course, in a chain-linked, outdoor, 10x10 foot pen. He is allowed three showers and five hour-long recreation periods a week. The District Attorney did everything in his power to ensure that Rader lacks access to any kind of material or medium that might help him relive his deviant fantasies, including pencils, pens, papers, news reports covering his own murders, audio or video recordings, or any inanimate article that could represent a fetish of a human or animal. It was also recommended that Rader's incoming mail be first fully censored by prison officials. Each time Rader leaves his cell it will be double-checked for any of the above-mentioned or simliar items.

There was also a recommendation of classifying Rader as a sex offender, a risky label to possess inside a prison as dangerous as El Dorado. Sex offender classification would mean Rader would receive treatment as a sex offender instead of a violent offender. There are several purposes for administering treatment to someone serving a life sentence without parole, including the expanded knowledge of the inmate's case, the reduction of prison infractions, misconduct, or violations, and the improvement of placement decisions regarding appropriate security level and determination of the kind of access to certain privaleges.

Howerer, after a year following his placement at El Dorado, Rader is behaving well enough to grant him several privaleges that violate these earlier recommendations. As of April, he is allowed television and radio access, and he can read newspapers, magazines, and books. Even though Rader used to cut out magazine advertisements of women and children to further his sexual fantasies, he is nevertheless now permitted to draw upon paper with a pencil or pen. For television, however, Rader must shell out the money to pay for it: at least $103 for a 13-inch color, or $80 for a 12-inch black-and-white if pruchased in prison. In addition, all televisions are protected with a sheath of plastic molding to prevent any prohibited materials from being stored inside, and must be listened to through a pair of headphones. Even though materials depicting sexual or erotic stimuli are not allowed, victims have argued that he would still be able to read about himself, with access to popular magazines such as Time and Newsweek, feeding his narcissistic dreams.

According to the Kansas Department of Corrections, Rader has progressed two "incentive" levels, criteria used to measure an inmate's good behaviour that have become popular in school-wide behaviour management systems. In some minimum security establishments, incentive levels, or "earning privaleges," determine the allowed amount of cash to be spent each week, the number of total personal possessions, and level of association or socialization time with other inmates (which clearly would not apply to Rader).

See insideprison's profile of El Dorado Correctional Facility.

Paul Bernardo: Kingston Penitentiary

Paul Bernardo is probably Canada's most famous serial killer. He is serving two life sentences at Kingston Penitentiary for his primary role in the torture and murder of two teenage girls in the early 1990's. His equally-famous partner in crime, Karla Homolka, was also housed in Kingston (at the recently-closed Kingston Penitentiary for Women), before being later transferred to Ste.-Annes-Des-Plaines prison and then later to Joliette Corrections Camp in Laval, QC. Like others housed in maximum and super-maximum confinement, Bernardo is only allowed outside of his small 2x3 metre cell for one hour each day.

Kingston Penitentiary is one of the oldest prisons in Canada, at 177 years old, and houses about 350 inmates currently, but it will soon be decomissioned as the Conservative government moves to more centralized units. It is assumed that Bernardo will either be transferred to one of these new complexes, or to the same prison fellow inmate Russel Williams was transferred to, at the Port-Cartier Institution in Quebec. While Millhaven and Collins Bay are fully-opeational neighbouring prisons in Kingston, they likely offer no suitable custodial accommodations for the likes of high-profile dangerous offenders.

Juan Corona: California State Prison, Corcoran

Juan Corona, who in the early 1970s slashed and hacked to death 25 farm workers before burying them in a shallow grave in a peach orchard near Yuba City, has had a transient history of being transferred across California's state prison system. After originally being recommended for San Quentin, which at the time had facilities for those with heart ailiments such as Corona's, Corona was committed to California Medical Facility in Vacaville in 1973, where he was later stabbed and blinded by another inmate. Corona was then transported to Correctional Training Facility in Soledad where he stayed for five years, including the period when his retrial was conducted.

In 1982 he was then transferred to Corcoran, but in 1999 suffered another attack in the prison yard. This time, three other inmates had gained access to the emergency ward that imprisoned Corcoran's most famous prisoners, including Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan, minorily injuring Corcoran and smashing Manson's guitar. According to the Associated Press (16 Mar 1999), Corrections Department officials said that gaining entrance into the protective housing unit of the prison is a "badge of honor." Apparently, the three inmates, who had been primed in wait for the moment the protective custody unit became insecure, gained entry by taking advantage of a sensor unit malfunction that signaled a light to authorities that there was a breach of access. When authorities were alerted, a prison guard fired a round from a wood block gas gun, similar to a tear-gas rifle, to quell the disturbance.

In 2002, Corona suffered yet another attack that rendered him unconscious in his cell. He was taken to a nearby hospital and placed into intensive care under constant guard supervision. At 69, Corona is reported as sick with dementia, muttering words to himself as he paces the prison yard. Juan has been denied parole a total of six times, in part because he consistently declined to admit to his murders.

Charles Manson: California State Prison, Corcoran

Probably one of the world's most infamous murderers, Charles Manson was responsible for the deaths of seven people in the late 1960's, and has been serving time in Corcoran's Protective Housing Unit for most of his institutional sentence. Now 77 years old, Manson has lived in the California prison system for over 65 years. To reporters and interviewers who have met with him inside prison, many are astounded at the strength of his resolve to live in such harsh conditions. His hobbies include reading, making knotted string art, in which he crafts insects and spiders out of thread he has unravelled from clothing, and playing music. Anything but a model inmate, Mason was put in protective isolation for manufacturing a weapon inside his cell, was caught twice for possession of a contraband cellphone, and has usually refused to participate in any GED or self-improvement classes. In April of 2012, the parole board sent only 20 minutes deliberating before denying Manson his 12th request for release. He must wait another 15 years before filing again.

Sirhan Sirhan: California State Prison, Corcoran

Previously sentenced to California's Soledad Prison in 1968 for the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, Sirhan Sirhan was moved to Corcoran. The Arab fanatic murdered Kennedy, the brother of John F. Kennedy and then-likely candidate for the next presidential election, in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen, just after Kennedy had won the California Democratic presidential primary election. Sirhan Sirhan was an Arab radical who protested against president John F Kennedy's support of the Israel cause against the Arabs. He was murdered on the first day of the Six Day War in the Middle East that ultimately saw Israel deliver a crushing blow to the Arab world.

At the time, the United States had suspended the death penalty, so Sirhan Sirhan was spared and sentenced to life imprisonment. However, life imprisonment in California at the time simply meant a maximum of 13 years. Former Parole Board official James Hoover set the murderer's (assassin's) parole eligibility date at 1984, drawing widespread criticism that the US was sending a message throughout the world that the penalty for political assassination was just 13 years, a decidedly reasonable argument, if in fact Sirhan was released in 1984 instead.

Pictures of Sirhan Sirhan show him in a relaxed state of mood in prison, glib and seemingly unconcerned.

Arthur Shawcross: Sullivan Correctional Facility

Serial killer Arthur Shawcross was 63 when he died at Albany Medical Center outside of Sullivan Correctional Facility in 2008, where he had been serving a 250-year sentence for the strangulation of 11 women in the Rochester area of New York State in the late 1980's. New York's State Commission of Correction reported that Sullivan died of medical neglect, specifically, negligent and incompetent medical evaluation and treatment ("Serial Killer Victim of Medical Neglect?" United Press International, 27 Jan 2010). Before his death, he was refused wheelchair access for an injured leg, and was transferred to hospital in a prison van rather than an ambulance, delaying his medical treatment for longer than was allegedly necessary. Shawcross' 13-week trial included many gruesome details of mutilation and cannibalism that he engaged in during the course of his murders. His defence pled unsuccessfully for criminal insanity.

Shawcross briefly came up in the news in 2001 when he sold a collection of 10 sketches of his own personal artwork for $540 to the public. One of them included a portrait of Princess Diana. The sale and proceeds later prompted New York's Department of Corrections to ban the sale of inmate artwork.

John Wayne McGray: Kent Institution