MALAIKA MAHLATSI | Worst of the worst in US prisons detest child killers

The US has one of the highest crime rates and incarcerations in the world. According to a report by the Prison Policy Initiative, there are approximately 2-million inmates locked up in the country’s 4,860 prisons. This number excludes 1,323 juvenile correctional facilities where incarcerated youth below the age of 18 are kept, 181 immigration detention facilities as well as military prisons.

Statistically, the US has only 5% of the world’s population, but more than 20% of the world’s incarcerated population. This is extraordinary by any measure. But this article is not about the number of prisoners in the US, it is about a very interesting practice that is common in prisons.

Those who are incarcerated are either awaiting trial (in jails) or have been convicted and are serving their sentences (in prisons) for their crimes. Some of these are hardened criminals, including serial killers. The US also leads the rest of the world in documented serial killers, with an astounding 3,613 serial killers, according to a study by the University of Michigan (to understand how high this number is, consider that the country with the second highest number of serial killers is England, and the number of its documented serial killers is 176).

To be considered a serial killer, one must have killed three or more people on different occasions. This is different to mass killers who kill numerous people at the same time. In the prison hierarchy of the most respected or feared convicts, serial killers are at the very top. Other criminals, including those who murder law enforcement officers, are also respected. But there’s one category of criminals that even other criminals detest – child molesters and child killers.

There are many reports about child molesters being subjected to unimaginable violence in US prisons. Some of them have even been killed by other inmates, prompting a lot of prisons in the US to place child sexual offenders in solitary confinement for their own protection. So serious is the problem of child sexual offenders being attacked and killed by other prisoners that various scholars have studied it.

Most recently, Joshua Long, an academic at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, did a study on it, which was published by the Journal of Criminal Justice in September 2022. The study, titled “Targeted violence in correctional facilities: The complex motivations of prisoners who kill child sex abusers”, sought to interview prisoners who had attacked or killed convicted child sex offenders, to understand the motivations behind their actions.

Many of the respondents argued that their actions were justified and that child sex offenders should be given automatic death sentences. One of the prisoners interviewed even stated: “I was doing God’s work.”

It is very telling that people who are incarcerated for committing serious crimes, including murder and serial rape, draw the line on sexual violence against children. It communicates that even those whom we regard as the worst elements in our society are appalled by violence being visited on children.

The lack of morality ends where childrens’ innocence is violated. And they’re so firm in their conviction that child sexual offenders are scum that they’re prepared to attack and kill, knowing that this will add more years to their own sentences.

I would rarely advise that society look to incarcerated criminals to learn important moral lessons but on this, I make an exception. South African society in particular, where children have become targets of unthinkable violence and abuses, could learn something about morality from US prisoners.

The murder and sexual violation of anyone is heinous. No one should be raped. But this violence being visited on children is unforgivable. It’s so unconscionable that even murderers and rapists cannot reconcile with it.