They read without a qualm, indeed they read with rejoicing, the hideous irony of "Killer Gets Life"; they sign with relief instead of horror. They donot see andsuffer the cell, the drill, the clothes, the stench , the food; they do not feel the sexual racking of young and old bodies, the hateful promiscuity , the insane monotony, the mass degradation, the impotent hatred. They do not remember from Silvio Pellico that only a strong political faith, with a hope of final victory, can steel a man to endure a long detention. They forget that Joan of Arc, when offered "life", preferred burning at the stake. Quite of another mind, the abolitionists point with pride to the "model prisoners" that murderers often turn out to be. As if a model prisoner were not, first, a contradiction in terms, and second, an exemplarof what a free society should not want.