UPDATE: Ninme points out that he's going to an Ultra-Max prison, where shanking is less likely than in a merely maximum security prison (where, for example, Jeffrey Dahmer met his end). I'd never heard of an ultra-max, so she may be right in her conclusion:
the people who have a big “Insert Shank Here” written on their backs (and other things written in other places) aren’t put in the sort of situation where they might actually be in danger of anything being inserted anywhere. So the bad guys are sentenced to a lifetime of being brutalized by their peers, but the really bad guys are spared all that.
Which in a way illustrates my ongoing point: without prison reform, the ability of our Justice system to mete punishments which are just, humane and predictable (the first two qualities being largely contingent on the third) is straightened.
