Have you ever been to JAIL or PRISON?

[No Ceiling]

i havent....

[JAB5239]

Yea man, Id be pretty scared going to jail cuz im not a great fighter.



Id rather eat **** for a week than 1 day of jail

Everyone is scared the first time they go, at first. I equate it with going to war. After the initial shock you just learn to cope. Its not fun, but there are worse things.

[alza1988]

14 days in the army just guard house .I was supposed to be going up for some bulls--t charges but they're getting threw out of court .I'm just waiting on a phone call from the army to tell me i'm all clear .

[Lakas]

Everyone is scared the first time they go, at first. I equate it with going to war. After the initial shock you just learn to cope. Its not fun, but there are worse things.

I had a cousin who did 25 years and just got out a year ago.


I couldnt imagine doing time like that....dear god

[JAB5239]

Im an officer at a jail, it's no fairy tale place. Cant do the time, dont do the crime.

Its funny, but before I caught my first bid I was in the process of getting a job at the state prison in Rhode Island. After I was in there I realized the hacks were doing time to. They may punch a clock and leave after a shift, but if you're locked in you're doing time just the same.

[JAB5239]

I had a cousin who did 25 years and just got out a year ago.


I couldnt imagine doing time like that....dear god

I couldn't either, that is a stretch.

When I was in there was a guy who had been there 20 years already. He was someone my father had grown up with and was a shot caller on the inside. Anyway, he did another 13 years (33 years) and finally got out. Only a few months later he killed someone and was back in. Put a search in for Alfred "Freddie" Bishop and you can read more about him. Small man, but a stone cold killer. I dwarfed this guy, but even he frightened me....and he liked me.

[Hi-Dro]

no but i was once stoned then a motha****a while watching american me

i felt like the i was literally inside the tube "dont look at me lil puppet"

true story

[JAB5239]

I couldn't either, that is a stretch.

When I was in there was a guy who had been there 20 years already. He was someone my father had grown up with and was a shot caller on the inside. Anyway, he did another 13 years (33 years) and finally got out. Only a few months later he killed someone and was back in. Put a search in for Alfred "Freddie" Bishop and you can read more about him. Small man, but a stone cold killer. I dwarfed this guy, but even he frightened me....and he liked me.

This was written about him in the state paper around the time I was locked up with him.

Recommended
1993 Journal profile of Freddie Bishop

10:38 AM EDT on Wednesday, August 1, 2007

By DAN BARRY and TOM MOONEY
Journal Staff Writers

Inmates dressed in regulation drab shuffle through the prison compound. They wend their way toward the dining hall, forming chains of khaki.

But one link stands apart.

His prison coat is bleached bone-white.

"#1" is stamped on his back.

"See that guy in the white coat," a prison administrator says, peering from a tower that looms over the compound. "That's Freddie Bishop."

As if on cue, Bishop looks up, grins, and nods.

Bishop, 50, has spent half his life behind bars for continuous acts of violence. For the last 19 years, he has been serving a life sentence for emptying his shotgun into a man who considered him a friend.

He has been eligible for parole for almost a decade. But his fight for freedom has been blocked by a concerted, and unusual, effort on the part of prison officials and state police.

They say Bishop is an evil man who cannot be controlled, who virtually has run every prison he's been in, from Maine to New Hampshire to Rhode Island. They say he has threatened to kill a prison director. They say he keeps in touch with the underworld, and has no interest in rehabilitation.

They say for the sake of the community, Bishop should remain locked up.

But the Parole Board chairman says Bishop has been in prison long enough, almost as long as any other inmate in Rhode Island. He says Bishop has stayed out of trouble in recent years and has earned another chance.

It is time, he says, to free Freddie Bishop.

* * *

Alfred J. "Freddie" Bishop is a study in contrasts.

With his cleft chin and wavy gray hair, he is often described as movie-star handsome. But his good looks are marred by the menacing crop of long hairs he allows to sprout from a growth on his neck.

Bishop's visitors include his mother Mildred, a waitress whom police have grown to like, and Albert Ursillo, whom police have charged with murder.

And he is good with his hands; judges and art professors have praised his woodwork and sculpture. But those hands have also punched police officers and pulled triggers.

When he was 15, Bishop dropped out of school because of poor grades and bad behavior. When he was 18, he picked a fight with two men in a bowling alley and beat them bloody; he caught 30 days in jail.

By the time he was 21, Bishop was getting arrested about once a month - larceny, burglary, assault. He had a penchant for attacking people.

Warwick police came to know "Freddie" by name. He and his buddies always seemed to be in the middle of some bottle-smashing brawl; their car trunks always seemed to contain the kinds of tools used to break into homes.

But Bishop earned the wrath of police departments everywhere in 1965, after he sent three Warwick officers to the hospital - all on one day.

An off-duty patrolman was sitting with his father in a booth at the Blue Danube Cafe when Bishop punched him twice in the head. "That's for being a ---- cop]" Bishop yelled.

Four hours later, two detectives tracked down Bishop at another bar. During the ensuing fight, Bishop grabbed one of the officer's guns and threatened to kill them. He ran away, but was caught after he accidentally shot himself in the thigh.

"He'll never change unless he gets worse," one of the detectives said later. "If they could prove everything he's done, they'd put him away for life."

Bishop was 23.

'My best friend did it'

Eight years later, on a cold midnight in December 1973, James Dunn was shotgunned through the living room window of his girlfriend's Warwick home. When police and medics arrived, Dunn was bleeding from a hole in his back.

He whispered: "Bishop shot me."

Dunn was rushed to Kent County Memorial Hospital.

"Who in the world did this to you?" a nurse asked.

"My best friend did it," Dunn said. Then he died.

Two hours later, Warwick police found Bishop in a car with another local hood. Glass particles from the shattered window were still on his clothes.

The next day Bishop was sent to the maximum-security prison. He was 31, with a reputation as a vicious, cold-eyed thug. He quickly became a "heavy" in a brutal system where inmates often had more power than their keepers.

Bishop controlled the south wing of the century-old fortress; a ruthless mobster named Gerard Ouimette ruled the north wing.

The two men had once been partners. Their gang had specialized in beating up bookies, shaking down bars for protection money, and doing odd jobs for Mafia boss Raymond L.S. Patriarca. But a nasty dispute between Bishop and Ouimette in the early 1970s ignited a war that left several men dead.

In prison, they sometimes joined forces to thwart the authorities; more often their personal spat injected tension into an already grim atmosphere. There was the time that Bishop found arsenic in his toothpaste. And the time a Ouimette crony dropped Bishop with a fist to the face, breaking his nose; when Bishop went down, Ouimette stomped on him.

But Bishop continued to wield the kind of power that enabled him to keep a pet goat, which he named after the warden. He emerged as an outspoken critic of the corrections department, and a champion for the rights of inmates.

"Freddie was a player, no question about that," says Leo DiMaio, a former executive of a now-defunct prisoners' rights group. "He was looked upon by the men as a leader. He believed in certain things and he was willing to stand up for them: the conditions inside, better food on the line, clothing."

Bishop also helped to run a curio shop that sold furniture and crafts made by inmates. One of his intricate woodcarvings was on permanent display.

His artistic ability was admired by everyone, including prison administrators. One former official still speaks about the time a visiting art teacher displayed a picture of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Bishop stunned the teacher by quickly sculpting a copy.

But any admiration was tempered by his erratic behavior. Few had forgotten the time that Bishop took over the rear hall of the prison with a pistol.

'Hit Man'

By 1978, corrections officials had had enough: they took back the prison. One night in September, Bishop and 14 other ringleaders were shackled and spirited out of the ACI.

Then-Governor Garrahy justified the drastic transfers, saying the 15 men had created an environment in which "guards and inmates live in constant mortal fear for their lives."

Bishop spent his next four years in a federal prison in Lewisburg, Penn. Then he was moved to the maximum-security prison in Maine, where he quickly earned the nickname, "Hit Man." He was shipped out just three months later, after informants said the "Hit Man" was planning an uprising to loot the prison canteen.

This time he was sent to the maximum-security prison in New Hampshire. There, in March 1984, he was visited by mob associate Rickie A. Cochrane and career criminal William "Red" Brady. Rhode Island State Police detectives remember the visit, because they had Cochrane and Brady under surveillance.

[JAB5239]

Later that year Bishop was sent back to Lewisburg. The reason: New Hampshire officials considered him a prime suspect in the murder of an inmate.

Bishop attended arts-and-crafts classes in Lewisburg, and generally stayed out of trouble.

Meanwhile, a federal court ruling allowed Bishop to come back to Rhode Island for parole hearings.

In 1988, the Parole Board denied his request, saying his release "would be inappropriate and would depreciate the seriousness of the offense."

In 1989, he was returned to the ACI from Pennsylvania, and eventually was allowed to live in the medium-security prison. That same year, the Parole Board gave Bishop a glimmer of hope: an April 1992 release date that would give corrections officials "ample time" to prepare him for parole.

But Bishop's lawyer, John F. Cicilline, says the corrections department unfairly blocked his client's path to freedom by refusing to transfer him to the minimum-security prison. Bishop needed the transfer to work his way toward the work-release program - and eventual parole.

The tension increased. A college professor took up Bishop's cause to win release by lobbying the corrections department. But Director John J. Moran was adamant: Freddie Bishop is dangerous, and does not belong on the streets.

Word soon reached Moran that Bishop had vowed to kill him.

Bishop denies making the threat. He offered to take a lie-detector test but was denied. He also wrote a letter to Moran asking for a meeting; he did not get a response.

Moran retired in July 1990. He has returned the department shotgun he once took home for protection. But he continues to take the reported threat seriously.

Tapping the underworld

On the outside, some of Bishop's friends were keeping busy.

A gang of career criminals began a New England crime spree in 1990 that included truck hijackings, bank heists and armored-car robberies. One gang member was convicted felon Robert Papa, an old friend of Bishop's.

In early 1991, a federal affidavit says, police traced dozens of calls made from Papa's Warwick home to various underworld figures. Their names read like a "who's who of wiseguys and dangerous criminals," says state police Lt. James Mullen.

Mullen says police also learned that Papa planned to rob the home of a Warwick bookmaker who kept large amounts of money in a basement safe. Papa learned about the cache of money, Mullen says, from Bishop.

In March 1991, a federal judge approved a wiretap on Papa's telephone. Over the next four weeks, Bishop called Papa 22 times - collect.

The two men sometimes talked in code, Mullen says, referring to the Warwick bookie as Bishop's uncle. "It was clear this person was in serious trouble. And it was clear that the job was Bishop's. He set it up."

The state police and FBI agents began trailing Papa; they watched on several occasions as his crew cased the house, stalked the target at his job, armed themselves. They convinced the bookie to let them hide in his house to head off the housebreak.

But the robbery never took place, Mullen says. "I think they knew they were being watched."

A month later, the state police raided Papa's home. During the search, Mullen told Papa how the police knew all about the plot to rob the Warwick bookie, and how detectives were hiding in the house. Papa said he didn't know what Mullen was talking about.

The next day, Bishop called again. Papa told him about the raid; Bishop sympathized, saying someone must have ratted.

Papa then spoke about Bishop's uncle, adding cryptically: They were watching.

Mullen says "they" refers to the detectives who were waiting inside the bookie's home.

Five months later, Papa and three henchmen were arrested in Massachusetts wearing masks and wielding machine guns, as they prepared to rob a Brinks armored car. Papa is now serving an 11-year sentence in federal prison.

Those in favor . . .

Parole Board chairman Kenneth Walker says the case of Alfred J. Bishop is easy: "The bottom line is this person's institutional record is pretty clean."

Walker has helped to parole thousands of inmates since he was appointed to the board in 1980. A Rhode Island College professor with a master's degree in counseling, he is known for his easy manner and the influence he wields on the board. Six people may sit on the board, says one former member, but "Ken Walker is the Parole Board."

And Walker is an unapologetic supporter of the parole system: "I do believe in giving a human being another opportunity if all the evidence points to the fact they deserve a second shot."

Freddie Bishop, he says, deserves a second shot.

Bishop has served nearly 20 years - almost double the 10-year minimum that state law requires for first-degree murderers sentenced before 1989. Prison studies have also shown that most paroled murderers stay out of trouble, in part because they know that just one slipup could mean a return to jail.

And Walker is very conscious of the bruising court battles over parole. A 1976 state Supreme Court ruling requires the Parole Board to give specific reasons for each denial. Several prisoners challenged their parole denials and won, Walker says, because the board failed to meet that standard.

"If the person gets up to 15, 16, 17 years in prison and he has not had any major institutional problems, what do you use as criteria to hold that person?" Walker says. "You can't use what that person did 10 or 20 years ago as a reason for denial unless you have something strong that says this person hasn't changed."

What about associating with known criminals like Cochrane and Brady? The alleged threat against Moran? The telephone calls to Papa? The visits from accused murderer Ursillo?

Walker says that consorting with criminals would be a "technical violation" for a parolee. Still, he says, "What charges were brought against him? What was he found guilty of? You have to have evidence to deny a person parole."

As for Ursillo visiting Bishop in prison, Walker says: "Whose responsibility is it to screen visitors?"

In fact, Walker expresses some irritation with how corrections officials have handled Bishop's case. "This man could not move through the system where he was," he says. "It's as if they have a hold on him."

Bishop's lawyer, Cicilline, agrees. He says the state police and some corrections officials have "conspired" to keep Bishop captive.

He shrugs off Bishop's contacts with criminals: "He's been in prison for 19 years. The only people he knows now are either people who have passed through the prison system or people he knew before he went to prison."

And he puts little stock in the conversations between Bishop and Papa: "If there are any criminal conversations, he would have been charged with something."

Cicilline insists that Bishop poses no danger to the community; Walker is less certain.

"There is no guarantee," he says. "The guarantee is to keep him there but you have to have reason and cause to keep him there.

"And basically we don't have that."

. . . Those against

Brian Andrews tries to hold his temper.

"Here's a guy who's preparing for parole and he's keeping daily contact with a guy like Bobby Papa," Andrews says, his voice rising. "And Papa was involved in criminal activity when Bishop was calling him.

"It's business as usual for Bishop," he adds. "He hasn't changed."

Before his retirement late last year, Andrews was detective captain for the state police. He and Lieutenant Mullen spent more than a year tracking the armored-car gang. When they heard that Bishop was up for parole, they were outraged.

The two lawmen sought out the Parole Board last October. They told the board everything: Bishop's calls to Papa, the plot to rob the bookie - and their belief that Bishop should not be let out.

Recalling the meeting, Andrews still gets riled: "And Bishop's calling Papa] Putting pressure on him to do an invasion of a house]"

They are not alone. Corrections Director George Vose opposes Bishop's release based "on the same public safety concerns" voiced by Moran, his predecessor.

"We have to be relatively assured that there is a minimal risk that the offender would be a threat to the public's safety," says Vose. He doesn't have that assurance "at this time."

Says Andrews: "I don't think law enforcement would have any interest in Freddie Bishop's parole if he had stayed out of trouble."

Says Mullen: "Law enforcement should be prepared if he gets out."

Epilogue

Freddie Bishop's bleached coat has been confiscated because it violated regulations.

Accused murderer Albert Ursillo was removed from Bishop's list of approved visitors after Journal-Bulletin inquiries last week.

The guards who supervise Bishop every day refuse to talk about him.

"They're afraid he'll find out," says Ken Rivard, spokesman for the Brotherhood of Correctional Officers. "They all have that feeling that somehow, some way, the guy would find out who talked and they'd end up in a barrel somewhere."

Bishop declined to be interviewed for this story.

His next Parole Board hearing is Thursday.

[Miley Montana]

i used to be a chronic masturbater. started jacking off in public and ****. finally that lifestyle caught up with me and i got put away for 2 years. everyday was a struggle. i was getting sold to inmates left and right.