
A Love Story That Upended the Texas Prison System - rmason
https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/love-story-upended-texas-prison-system/
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owenversteeg
Interesting how he still seems to enjoy a clean reputation on the Internet.
His Wikipedia page is spotless and there seem to be plenty of places extolling
him all over.

I'm pretty surprised, given that he died in 1991 and I figure he'd be
universally seen as a terrible person. But he's noted in several places as a
master of PR, so perhaps that continued after his death, despite causing the
death and enslavement of countless people and losing a Supreme Court case
related to his literal enslavement of prisoners.

I wonder if he's got fans monitoring things for him after his death? Some form
of post-mortem reputation service? In any case, I'm disgusted that someone who
literally enslaved more than 16,000 people for over a decade seems to have
gotten away with it scot-free. I figured that in the age of the Internet,
someone with a horrific legacy like this would never get away with it, but
indeed nearly everything about him I can find is positive, and he's even got
prisons named after him operating today.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Beto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Beto)

[https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbenm](https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fbenm)

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mattigames
Happens all over Wikipedia, for example Aleister Crowley (same one the Ozzy
Osbourne song "Mr Crowley" is based on) is described as an scholar and where
"occultism" is hold in high regard never mentioning its fictional nature and
never suggesting or implying its just another money-making scam scheme; heck
the Wikipedia page for Crowley or for occultism dosn't mention the word "scam"
even once despite being one of the most used by its critiques.

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daodedickinson
It's a power scheme, NOT a mere standard money scheme.

~~~
mattigames
Ok, but that isn't mentioned either.

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noobermin
What a fantastic and riveting read. Of course, as with real life, the ending
was upsetting (heroin really does kill and to this day, dealing with addiction
to heroin is something we as a society still haven't figured out). I think one
thing this highlights is something I've learned from reading and talking to
activists who work with prisons. There really is a "different world" in
prisons. Even with all the motion we've made since the 60s and 70s, prison
remains a strange institution that has some moral abstract basis and purpose
for existing in society for the rehabilitation and punishment of those who
commit crime, but generates its own logic, and its own hierarchy, and
perpetuates itself. Just like in Beto and McAdam's day, today prisons try to
help fund themselves using prison labor, which has come up here before. United
States prisons and the justice system as a whole still needs dire reform.

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tcj_phx
This is a fascinating article. I'd run across the term jailhouse lawyer in my
readings about habeas corpus.

The law and courts have long recognized that some people aren't capable of
writing their own petitions for relief, and need the help of a 'next friend'
because no attorney is available to help the disadvantaged make their case.
Just now I searched for "Jailhouse lawyer habeas", and found that Columbia Law
School has a manual [0] to help prisoners assert their rights. Habeas corpus
is one way of presenting a case to the court that says your rights were
violated (the manual has a comprehensive chapter on this type of filing).

[0] A Jailhouse Lawyer’s Manual, 11th Ed. -
[http://jlm.law.columbia.edu/viewprevioused/](http://jlm.law.columbia.edu/viewprevioused/)

This manual would have been helpful, but it didn't show up in my searches 3
years ago... I just used Wikipedia, a template from a Florida law firm, and
the legislature's listing of the state's statutes to figure out how to
petition the court. The judge ruled that the hospital's authority to hold my
friend against her will had expired, and that she was to be released. I made
the little mistake of thinking the hospital would care about the judge's
order, after their attorney blew off the hearing...

I think most state prisons have libraries for prisoners to use. Most county
jails are terrible places with no meaningful access to libraries.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_library#United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_library#United_States)

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ezoe
I've read the whole article. It was like good written dystopian novel but non-
fiction which I can't believe.

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kposehn
Wow, what a story. This is quite amazing - I could not stop reading it.

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chris_wot
The Wikipedia article for Beto mentions virtually nothing of any of this. What
is going on?

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nyolfen
as usual, texas monthly knocks it out of the park.

it's darkly ironic that beto's prediction of inmate-run prisons would come to
pass, though for many reasons beyond just administration reform.

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tqi
Can you elaborate?

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nyolfen
during the 70s and 80s, there was a huge influx in american prisoners due to
the war on drugs and more severe sentencing that followed the surge in crime
beginning the 60s. the old prison culture was organized around severe methods
like the one described in this essay, and small groups of prisoners who tended
to keep each other in line following a 'convict code' of behavioral norms and
a system of seniority. the surge in population, especially of men who were
younger than the old timers who previously made up the bulk of the long-term
population (sentences tended to be much shorter than they are now), threw the
situation into chaos. reciprocal violence, petty predation and prison riots
suddenly exploded.

the old system broke down because the guards and older inmates could no longer
effectively keep the new prisoners in line. the power vacuum was eventually
filled by the race-based gangs we know today, which stepped in to effectively
provide governance where the state was no longer able to. the massive
availability of drugs provided them with a business model and incentive for
creating stability among the other prisoners, enforced by ruthless violence
where necessary.

it's still this way today in american prisons. the state of course formally
controls the facility, but the gangs exert extraordinary power underneath the
surface, over the relations and arrangements that aren't legible to the
administration. i'm not making any normative claims about which arrangement
was better, but it's a pretty interesting story. i'm giving a very brief
summary of what i read in this book:

[http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=A6D69CBF4ADEEA046A4...](http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=A6D69CBF4ADEEA046A420200EF1C3FD8)

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tqi
Very interesting - thanks for the info!

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Aloha
This is a long read, but well worth it.

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nitwit005
Excellent article. I have to admit not caring much about the love story angle,
but the legal struggle and general perseverance of the people involved was
quite interesting.

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quadcore
_The damage to Beto’s reputation, however, was the true cost._

If I understand correctly, and if the source is correct and not significantly
misleading, he's a murderer, a human trafficker and an influence peddler. This
guy should have gotten death sentence.

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ddingus
Wow. I was hooked right away.

Worth reading.

Complaint written on TP. Hard to imagine that hell.

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mproud
Amazing. Has this been turned into a movie yet?

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ex3xu
Looks like there was an archival footage documentary that aired on PBS back in
2008:
[http://writwritermovie.com/trailer.html](http://writwritermovie.com/trailer.html)

But my reaction is the same as yours -- maybe it was just the spectacular
pacing by the article writer, but this story feels like it would make a great
and timely Netflix original. Like, the Green Mile meets I Love You Philip
Morris.

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gambiting
It's interesting that in hindsight, those were the times when US was most
staunchly opposed to communism - yet everything written in this article makes
me think of the way USSR treated its citizens. Yes, there were laws that
protected you, yes you could appeal to courts and at least in theory your
rights were always protected. In practice, it was the same as the situation in
Texas - people put in charge of prisons or judges answered to absolutely no
one and the laws were completely arbitrary and could be dismissed without any
reason. The targeting of lawyers and demanding they be fired from institutions
that employed them looked exactly the same under communist rule. In any case,
what is described here seems more like a torture system, not a prison system -
no wonder it had such poor rehabilitation rates.

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mpnagle
so so so heartwarming oh my god

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nyolfen
this story was a lot of things but that's not a term i would have chosen
personally

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paulgrant999
the correct way to force prison systems to follow the law and their
regulations, is called a "consent decree". it forces them under penalty of
law, to actually live up to specific terms in a settlement.

unfortunately; they are now banned ... "just for prisons". the courts will not
enforce, or create any new consent decrees... "because it denies agencies
their discretion".

the same discretion, that leads to rampant abuses in prisons and "detention"
camps.

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theparanoid
Women love bad boys e.g.
[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2179107/James-
Holme...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2179107/James-Holmes-
Sickening-tweets-girls-crushes-cute-Denver-Batman-killer.html)

~~~
noobermin
James Holmes should not be compared to Fred Cruz in this story. Even the
crimes Cruz committed are nowhere near as grave as Holmes' and even so, the
connection between the Frances Jalet and Fred Cruz has no comparison to the
sort of murderer fascination you link to here.

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chris_wot
Not to mention the stereotyping and condescension in the parent poster's
comment is extraordinary.

