I watch a lot of true crime stuff, and sometimes once I know who the offender is, I look up where they’re in prison. Oftentimes, there’s some overlap. For example, remember the Craig Titus case? Well, Titus is in prison at Lovelock Correctional Center, where O.J. Simpson is also a resident. Juan Covington is at Greene State in PA, which also houses Jerry Sandusky. The thing is, the Titus case and the Covington case are probably only known to those who TiVO Dateline. But in Tucson, at the federal lock-up, two notorious individuals are now housed in the same unit: Whitey Bulger and Brian David Mitchell. Here’s the basic scoop on their digs:
Whitey is housed in a section called the Dropout Unit. It’s a collection of sex offenders, informants, and government witnesses. So Whitey is surrounded by perverts, creeps, and rats. His kind of crowd.
For ease of understanding, the “Dropout Unit” is essentially for people who don’t fit in other areas of the federal prison system. There are other notable inmates at Tucson, but it appears Mitchell and Bulger are on the same unit. Mitchell was moved in 2013 because of this incident:
In July of 2013, Mitchell was beaten by a fellow inmate. According to a prison source, he was targeted for his crime against a child, as well as his arrogance and religious preaching. During the attack, other prisoners reportedly watched and chanted: ‘This is for Elizabeth Smart!’ The prison source remarked, ‘He had a target on his back because the other inmates hate child molesters. Even murderers look down on them as the lowest of the low.’ Mitchell suffered a swollen eye, bloody lip and cuts and bruises in the attack, and was moved to another section of the prison made up mostly of sexual offenders.[41]
Potentially ironically, Jared Lee Loughner — who committed his crimes in Tucson — is actually serving out his sentences in Missouri. Apparently Randy Lanier, who I had never heard of before writing this, is also in that prison. Read Lanier’s story; it seems to deserve some kind of movie treatment, no? (Not in the good way, just in the storytelling way.)
