General Mosby?" Bennington murmured. "Cue me in. Youwere always the best public relations officer either of us ever had."
"Jim, from anyone else--" Mosby started, stopped, grinned. "Thetrouble is, you're right.
"But this time we don't need any style, this time all we need is thetruth.
"Tell them why the prison wasn't running right, how the riot happenedand why you are where you are tonight, and what the prisons need tomake them run better...."
Mosby stopped again, and this time was very slow in re-starting.
"When you get there, I don't know, Jim. What _are_ you going to tellthem?"
_I wish I could be sure, Mossback._
_I know I can make that hot seat hotter by stating no one else knowseither, because we've never decided what a prison is for ... society'sprotection, a place to put people like Clarens, where they won'taffect the lives of normal folk? A deterrent, a threat, a place topoint to as a warning not to break the law? Or, as Thornberry wouldhave it, the first step to returning people to normal lives asfunctioning members of society again?_
_Dare I say that the only thing certain about prisons is that so far theyhaven't worked ... that stone walls, iron bars, conditioning and drugsthat take the reason prisoner, none of these have kept men in ... thatthey would always try to escape as long as there was hope, hope ofsomething better on the outside._
* * * * *
As Mosby stepped aside, Bennington considered the reverse of that lastthought.
_Was there an answer here, to ask his fellow-countrymen to face theimmediately, perhaps the forever, impossible, that the only way tokeep a man from hoping and trying to get out, was to build a societywhere they never got in?_
Then Bennington remembered Clarens.
_No, let's face facts, that till man is superman, there will always bepeople like Clarens, people who will never be redeemed. People, who nomatter how carefully caged or watched, will ever be a potentialthreat, if only to their keepers. By what weird accident they came tolife, well, list that among other facts as yet unknown, and consideronly the end result, that there were people whose only pleasure lay inperpetual destruction._
_Automatically, such people themselves must be destroyed._
He was only vaguely aware of the flash-bulbs popping as he walked tothe chair behind Chief Scott's desk.
_That could be an answer, a new addition to the Decalogue, a newCommandment specific to the judge giving sentence to a man likeClarens, an injunction not to jail but to destroy. Simply phrased forthe judge, thou shalt not commit!_
He seated himself and blinked a couple of times, adjusting to theglare.
_But, beginning with Thornberry, there would be many people whowouldn't agree, who would never accept such an amendment to the SacredTen, people who never seemed to see that phrase in their newspapersevery time a child was assaulted, "Police are questioning all knownsex offenders."_
Bennington looked thoughtfully around at the men ready to questionhim.
He, too, was ready, ready to tell them....
_... Some people are a damn sight better off dead._
* * * * *
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