Maximum security prisons are filled with men who simply will not follow any rules, unless those rules are backed up with the threat of severe physical injury or death. There are some who don’t even fear severe injury. They are essentially violently insane, homicidal and suicidal.
Such was the case of those in Solitary in the PBS documentary I was watching. Psychologists spent lots of time trying to solve their individual issues in order to get them into the General prison population. It proved impossible to get them all to the point they could be trusted in the general population. Some could not sustain normality for more than a few days without going berserk.
I have a friend who was a Wayne State University professor who had to do a study many years ago on maximum security inmates at the Oakland County jail in Pontiac, MI.
Each interview he conducted required an armed guard in the room with him for protection. He said these were the scariest people he had ever dealt with in his life and couldn't wait till the study was over....