In another interview in late January, the prisoner in Bullock referred to as “Zach” in these articles discusses the treatment of gay prisoners in the Alabama prison system.

“I did want to mention something,” Zach tells me at the top of the interview. “I’m a part of the, I guess, gay community in here. So, it puts me in a group, I guess, of real mean treatment in here.”

He elaborates, “At first, it was by choice. I was spending time with mostly good people. And in the past, I’ve had situations where I’ve been claimed — ‘You’re mine now, do as I say or else’ type situations — and that’s even been here [in Bullock]. I’m just minding my own business, doing my own thing, and some big bully type guy will come around and start putting down on you, and taking your store, and possibly feeding you drugs and keeping you strung out so that you become dependent.”

He adds, “I’ve been fortunate enough to be with a couple of good folks, but I’ve been in some other situations too where I’ve been raped and stuff like that.”

Describing one of the previous situations in which he was claimed and raped, “Another prisoner was putting down on me pretty hard or whatever, and I tried to get away,” Zach recalls. “I went to the police and moved to a different dorm. Well, he showed up [in that dorm] and started threatening me with knives and to keep robbing me, and he had some other friends in that dorm who pulled a knife on me. And then this other guy was like, ‘I will help you if you do this.’ So, I ended up getting in a situation where I was looking for........

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