No Choirboy post 2

The second chapter in No Choirboy is about a boy named Mark. Mark was fourteen years old when he and his brother killed a man and his wife who were going to testify against them for stealing farm equipment. He was arrested about four months later. The first part of the chapter, Mark talks about how the crime went down, what he did, and how he was traumatized by what he did for so long. He talks about contemplating suicide and the feelings he had going through his body. Mark was going to be tried as an adult but didn’t go to trial. Instead he plea-bargained for life with parole.

Mark then talks about the high security prison that he was in. He says, “It was real scary. It was bad. It was like you see in the movies.” Mark really gets deep into the prison scene. A very important quote I found form this chapter was, “ Rape was my biggest fear in Donaldson. I mean, full-grown men who had no homosexual characteristics were raping men. They were like animals. I felt like I was living in a zoo and around a bunch of animals.” This really caught my attention. I kept reading and started to think about the prison system and its conditions. Mark talks about the prison gangs and how the prison is a racist environment Mark explains how everybody fought and people were beat up. The prisons system seemed way out of control.

Later in the chapter, Mark talks about after he was moved to Holman correctional facility; he got the change to work in the death chamber. One day he was talking to a guy who was supposed to die in two days. Mark asked him, “ Hey, man, how do you feel?” The guy responded by saying, “ Man, I’d rather do this than spend the rest of my life down the hall.” This is one reason that I am against the death penalty. Killing somebody is not punishing them. Yeah, it is a human instinct to protect yourself but in my opinion, the death penalty is an easy way out for most people on death row. This quote backs it up.  Earlier in the school year, we watched a video about a guy on death row, I forgot his name, but he said he was “ready to die” and how he couldn’t take prison anymore. It’s as simple as that the death penalty is giving them what they want. Keeping them in jail without parole is much more of a punishment for people like that.