XPost: oc.general, ba.politics, alt.politics.radical-left   
   XPost: sbay.education   
   From: ceeya@kenyan.com   
      
   In prison, fellow inmates derisively call pedophiles "chesters,"   
   "tree jumpers" and "short eyes."   
      
   Prison can be a menacing place for child molesters like the   
   former Roman Catholic priest John Geoghan, who was killed in his   
   cell Saturday — or for other alleged pedophile priests working   
   their way through the criminal justice system.   
      
   "If you take out a sex offender like this former priest in   
   Massachusetts, maybe the person who took him out thought he'd   
   make a name of himself," said Margot Bach, a spokeswoman for   
   California Department of Corrections. "Taking [a pedophile] out   
   would gain [the killer] a lot more respect among the other   
   inmates."   
      
   In fact, Goeghan's accused killer, Joseph Druce, "looked upon   
   Father Geoghan as a prize," and plotted his killing for a month,   
   John Conte, district attorney for Worcester County, Mass., told   
   reporters Monday.   
      
   Though prison officials in some Northeastern states question the   
   idea of an automatic social hierarchy among prisoners based   
   solely upon their offenses, most agree that if there is one,   
   child molesters and informants — derided as "snitches" — occupy   
   the lowest rungs.   
      
   ‘They Usually Don’t Make It’   
      
   Such offenders, including Geoghan, often are placed into   
   protective custody with other prisoners seen to be under a   
   threat.   
      
   "Once their crime has become known, they usually don't make it"   
   without protective custody, said Lt. Ken Lewis, a corrections   
   officer and spokesman at California's Los Angeles County State   
   Prison. "There's a lot of [pedophiles] that can successfully   
   make it … as long as they don't brag about their offense."   
      
   If they do talk, "they'll get beat up," Lewis added. "In some   
   places he may even get his throat cut."   
      
   That potentially could mean a lot of inmates at risk. At the end   
   of 2001, about 83,000 state prison inmates, or about 6.8   
   percent, were male sex offenders who had committed a rape or   
   sexual assault against a minor under age 18, according to Allen   
   Beck, chief of corrections statistics for the federal Bureau of   
   Justice Statistics.   
      
   Just 56 state and federal prisoners out of a population of about   
   1.3 million were actually killed by other inmates during the   
   yearlong period between July 1999 and June 2000, and it was   
   unknown how many were pedophiles, Beck said.   
      
   But unpopular prisoners also can be harassed in other ways.   
      
   "[Child sex offenders] are at risk of being murdered, having   
   their food taken, having their cells defecated and urinated in,"   
   said Leslie Walker, a prisoner's rights activist with the   
   Massachusetts Correctional Legal Society. "Their life is truly a   
   living hell."   
      
   ‘Who’s Running This’ Prison?   
      
   Part of the reason pedophiles can be so reviled is that some   
   inmates are parents, and many were themselves sexually abused as   
   children, some say. Druce's father told The Boston Herald that   
   Druce frequently had been molested.   
      
   Some reports have described Druce, 37, as a member of the neo-   
   Nazi hate group Aryan Nation. In particular, Druce — who is   
   serving a life sentence for killing a gay man who picked him up   
   as a hitchhiker in 1988 — "has a long-standing phobia, it   
   appears, towards homosexuals of any kind," Conte said.   
      
   With such a background, critics — including Walker and Kazi   
   Toure, an ex-convict and prisoner support worker who still   
   visits Massachusetts prisons — are asking how Druce could have   
   been placed in protective custody so near to the frail, 68-year-   
   old Geoghan at the maximum-security Souza-Baranowski   
   Correctional Center in Shirley, Mass.   
      
   Walker cited "a culture of looking the other way in prison."   
   Toure, co-director of the American Friends Service Committee's   
   Criminal Justice Program in Cambridge, Mass., said he, too, was   
   suspicious.   
      
   "For this guy who is in prison for killing a gay person … he's   
   seeing Geoghan every day, so this stuff has got to be coming up   
   inside of him," Toure said. "We're spending all this money [on   
   high-tech prisons], and the guy got killed, and they want to   
   blame it on the crazy guy? Who's running this?"   
      
   Michael Shively, a former Massachusetts corrections official,   
   said even though Geoghan was in protective custody, it was   
   impossible to completely guarantee his safety given that the   
   other inmates who require protection are drawn from a difficult   
   and dangerous population.   
      
   "To put together a group of people where it looks like no   
   offender is a threat to another offender is almost impossible   
   when you're drawing from that pool," Shively said.   
      
   Local Variations   
      
   The pool of prisoners in protective custody can vary from state   
   to state, and does not automatically include all child molesters   
   and informants, officials and aid workers said.   
      
   California prison officials described a good deal of racial and   
   gang affiliation among that state's prison population and a   
   crime-based hierarchy among inmates — with certain murderers at   
   the top of the heap.   
      
   Ironically, they said killing someone either at the top or the   
   bottom of the totem pole will garner respect for the killer   
   among fellow inmates — so child molesters and high-profile   
   killers both tend to be given protective custody unless they're   
   deemed tough or discreet enough to get along in the general   
   population.   
      
   But things are different in other parts of the country, said Ed   
   Ramsey, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of   
   Corrections, and a former corrections officer at a maximum-   
   security prison in the state.   
      
   Ramsey does not see a clearly defined "hierarchy of crimes"   
   among Connecticut inmates, nor large amounts of self-segregation   
   along gang and racial lines. Therefore, he said, the state   
   evaluates candidates for protective custody on a case-by-case   
   basis — considering those who legitimately feel endangered, or   
   who the institution sees as potential targets and therefore   
   threats to maintaining order. Such targets might include inmates   
   in high-profile cases or jailed former law enforcement officers.   
      
   In a further effort to maintain order, Connecticut officials do   
   segregate suspected members of certain gangs, including the   
   Aryan Brotherhood, within the prison system, Ramsey said.   
      
   Toure said although Massachusetts inmates may mock or scorn   
   pedophiles, he does not see a strict hierarchy of crimes in the   
   state's prisons that would lead to violence.   
      
   "I left Walpole [a maximum-security prison in Massachusetts] in   
   '87 and there wasn't a P.C. [protective custody] unit anymore …   
   because that stuff wasn't happening anymore, because people   
   weren't killing other people because of sex offenders or   
   anything like that," he said. "It had died down."   
      
   But Toure said hate can fuel violence if it festers, and as   
   prison services for inmates are cut due to budget constraints,   
   inmates with personal issues can lash out at others who   
   personify their problems. He said the Geoghan killing might be a   
   case in point.   
      
   "They don't give [Druce] any counseling or any programs to help   
   him deal with any problems that brought him in prison," Toure   
      
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