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'Baddest of the bad' in Texas prisons lead solitary lives.
MIDWAY — Behind the razor-wire-topped fences of Ferguson prison and other Texas penitentiaries are 5,205 inmates branded the baddest of the bad — dubbed so devious they are locked in one-man cells for 23 hours a day.
Lock down. Isolation. Administrative segregation.
Spread among 22 prisons, Texas has among the most inmates in so-called “ad-seg” of any state.
They have been deemed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to be “confirmed” members of gangs, too organized, predatory and violent to mix with the 150,000 prisoners in general populations.
They serve in cages of about nine by seven feet with cement walls outfitted with solid-steel doors or bars covered with mesh.
“We ain't the most likeable or most welcomed group in society,” concedes Anastacio Garcia, 38, a robber from the Rio Grande Valley who has been in isolation at this prison 35 miles east of Huntsville for 15 years. “We sit here day in and day out, basically rotting ourselves away.”
Another 4,000 or so inmates are serving temporary stints in ad-seg as punishment for breaking rules or being escape risks.
Their cells are identical to those on death row.
Source: My SA, Augsut 14, 2011
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