Word: lifer
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Nevertheless, the classes have achieved considerable success in their attempts to "challenge the prisoner's mind," as the following selections from short essay written by a "lifer" in Concord reformatory would indicate...
...Birds. But Texas is where, ornithologically, East meets West, and North America meets near-tropical Mexico. The conscientious Texas birder needed both Peterson books -or all three volumes of Richard H. Pough's Audubon Bird Guides-and by the time he had riffled all the pages, the exciting "lifer'' (i.e., a new bird) had probably flown away still unidentified...
Another Alumnus. Angola Prison remains Oster's favorite folk source, and Robert Pete Williams, 42, his favorite singer. A lifer for shooting and killing a man, Williams has, in Oster's view, the "tremendous drive and anguish" that characterized the fabled Lead Belly, another Angola alumnus. Williams recently improvised his own prisoner's blues...
...idea occurs to a lifer named Arnie (Jack Palance), whose brother (also portrayed by Actor Palance) happens to be his dead-ringer. To his brother and his ever-loving wife (Barbara Lang), Arnie communicates his plan: let his brother jump the wall of the prison's industrial area, which is lightly guarded during the night, and hide in a stack of crates. Next night Arnie will hide in the crates while his brother sleeps in the cell; during the night Arnie will dig a man-sized hole in the ground near the prison wall, cover it with boards...
...school teaches everything from elementary reading and high-school math to such vocational subjects as typing and radio repair. Some students are practically illiterate; one lifer is a high-school graduate who wants a "refresher"; at least three have IQs of around 140. Some are so eager that they come to class after working at regular prison jobs from midnight to 8 a.m. No matter who they are, Gragert refuses to coddle them. He has set his standards so high that a diploma from the school will be recognized as the equivalent of one from any accredited Kansas high school...