Leavenworth is the most dreaded facility in the prison system because of its fierce population; it is governed by ruthless clans competing for dominance. Pete Earley features the inmates in Leavenworth, who have certainly been placed there because they have been convicted of dark and desperate deeds, have been transfigured by their imprisonment into something far darker. The book is an eyewitness account of day-to day life inside the United States penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas the oldest federal prison and one of the most dangerous in the nation. The books major players consist of Carl Bowles, the sexual predator with a talent for murder; Dallas Scott, a gang member who has spent almost thirty of his forty-two years behind bars; Robert Matthews, the warden, who seems to be an essentially decent man in an indecent place; Thomas Silverstein, a sociopath confined in no human contact status since 1933 and career bank robber William Post who finds meaning in caring for the cats who have found a home live inside Leavenworth's walls. The story that these inmates - and their guards - tell of life in Leavenworth is one filled with rituals of violence no less potentially deadly because of their ritualistic quality and an astonishing degree of egotism and self-approval in men who have done terrible things. Prisoners who show signs of rage deserve to be locked in solitary confinement, I believe prisoners need to see what it is really like to suffer for their crimes instead of getting free healthcare and being able to graduate with their GED, committing a crime does not mean special privileges when in prison.
Leavenworth is two independent structures, one within the other a great stone building dropped like a cake dish over a rectangular, five story tall row of the building like a giant honeycomb: side by side, one row atop the other and back to back, so each cell