Jack Henry Abbott

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Jack Henry Abbott (born January 21, 1944 in Oscoda (Michigan) , † February 10, 2002 in prison Wende Correctional Facility ) was an American felon and writer .

He was released from prison in 1981 after his writing was recognized by a number of high-profile critics, including Norman Mailer . Six weeks after his release, he stabbed a young man in an argument, was convicted of manslaughter and hanged himself in prison in 2002.

Life

According to his own account, Abbott was born at Camp Skeel to an Irish-American soldier and a Chinese prostitute. In his book In the Belly of the Beast , he states that from birth he kept growing up with foster parents until he began to "serve long periods of youth arrest" at the age of nine. As a child Abbott had trouble with teachers and later with the law, and by the age of 16 he was sent to Utah State Industrial School , a reform school . Abbott said he was ill-treated by the school guards and left a lifelong mark.

The Australian film Ghosts ... of the Civil Dead is based on his life story.

Imprisonment and release

In 1965, aged 21, Abbott was serving a term for counterfeiting in a Utah prison where he stabbed a fellow inmate. For this act he was sentenced to an additional "three to 23 years". He managed to break out and raid a bank in Colorado ; In 1971 his sentence was therefore increased by a further 19 years. Abbott behaved rebelliously behind bars and spent much of his time in solitary confinement .

In 1977 he read that Norman Mailer was writing about the convicted murderer Gary Gilmore . Abbott wrote to Mailer, stating that Gilmore had heavily embellished his experience; Abbott offered to write about his own experiences behind bars and offer a more realistic account of life in prison. Mailer agreed and helped publish the book In the Belly of the Beast , which consisted of Abbott's letters to Mailer.

Mailer supported Abbott's efforts to obtain a pardon . Abbott was actually released in June 1981, despite concerns from prison officials, one of whom questioned Abbott's mental health and when asked if he had been rehabilitated, he replied, “I thought ... Mr. Abbott was dangerous ... I didn't see him as one People who would have changed. His attitude and behavior suggested psychosis. ”After his release, Abbott went to New York City and for a short time enjoyed the admiration of the literary scene.

Murder and re-imprisonment

On the morning of July 18, 1981, six weeks after his release, Jack Abbott went to a small Manhattan cafe called Binibon. He got into an argument with the restaurant owner's son-in-law, 22-year-old Richard Adan, over the use of the employees' toilet. Abbott stabbed Adan in the chest and later claimed he was acting in self-defense. Unaware of the crime, the New York Times printed a positive review of In the Belly of the Beast the next day .

After being on the run for some time, Abbott was eventually arrested while working on an oil field in Morgan City, Louisiana . He was charged with the murder of Adan. At his trial in January 1982, he won the support of celebrities such as the writer Jerzy Kosinski and the actress Susan Sarandon , who named her son Jack Henry Robbins after Abbott. Abbott was sentenced to 15 years to life for manslaughter .

Other than a $ 12,500 down payment, Abbott received no proceeds from the sale of In the Belly of the Beast because Richard Adan's widow successfully sued him for $ 7.5 million in damages, and therefore receives all of the profits from the book sales.

In retrospect, Norman Mailer regretted his support for Abbott. In a 1992 interview with The Buffalo News , Mailer said this was "another episode in my life that I can't find anything to be excited about or to be proud of." Kosinski admitted that his support for Abbott was basically a delusion.

The late years

In 1987 Abbott published another book, My Return . As in In the Belly of the Beast , Abbott argues that society must grapple with how it treats prisoners and that the prison system is fundamentally flawed in treating inmates like subhumans. In Belly of the Beast, Abbott describes the helplessness inmates feel while exposed to a prison system that never seems to be accountable for its actions. Abbot sees a negative impact of prisons on society as a whole:

We have no rights as prisoners , only as citizens. The only “rights” we have are those at their “discretion”. As a result, the only way we can claim our rights is to claim our rights. It is a compromise and, ultimately, I am very much afraid that we will lose as prisoners - but that loss will be the loss of all of society. We are only a few steps away from society. You come after us. "

Abbott appeared before the Appeals Board in 2001, but the Appeals Board denied his request because he showed no remorse, had a long criminal record, and had disciplinary issues while in custody. Abbott's distrust of the prison system and his refusal to express regrets for many of his actions were based on his belief that many of his actions were responses to a dehumanizing system. As examples, he cites being imprisoned between the ages of 12 and 18 simply because he “didn't get used to foster care well” as well as being sentenced to up to five years for “writing a bad check” when he was 18 was. These are examples of a system that criminalizes and severely punishes those who are unsuitable for society.

On February 10, 2002, Jack Abbott hanged himself in his prison cell using a noose he had constructed from his sheets and shoelaces . He left a suicide note, but it was never published.

In 2004, a New York theater played a play called In the Belly of the Beast Revisited .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. Jack Henry Abbott: In the Belly of the Beast . Vintage Books , 1981, ISBN 0-679-73237-3 .
  2. Mark Gado: Jack Abbott: From the Belly of the Beast . truTV . Archived from the original on September 30, 2012. Retrieved June 24, 2010.
  3. ^ A b c Mark Gado: Jack Abbott, murder made into literary celebrity . Crime Library. Archived from the original on December 17, 2007. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 15, 2007. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.crimelibrary.com
  4. chargeable / Archive: New York Times article about Abbott from 1981, written before his return to prison.
  5. His lawyer blamed Abbott's mental state of detention: Comment from Ivan Fisher, attorney for Abbott, following conviction - NYT, January 22, 1982
  6. ^ Claudia Wolffs: In the Belly of the Beast . Time Magazine . August 3, 1981. Retrieved November 15, 2007: “We pretended he had always been a writer. It was a fraud. It was like the '60s, when we embraced the Black Panthers in that moment of radical chic without understanding their experience. "
  7. Jack Henry Abbott, parole hearing, June 6, 2001, New York State Parole Commission. . Retrieved November 15, 2007.
  8. Elyse Summer: In the Belly of the Beast, Revisited, a CurtainUp review . www.curtainup.com. Retrieved September 8, 2009.