He ought to Hyde

I liked "That 70s Show" back in the day, but the one character I did not care for a great deal was Hyde, the redhead who seemed to think he was pretty tough for a medium-sized dude. 

Danny Masterson, now 48, was the actor who portrayed Steven Hyde, and he is not acting in front of cameras anymore. In fact, it was the way he acted away from cameras that has landed him a new role, that of a prison inmate.  At a trial last year, Masterson was convicted of raping two women in 2003, and he was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. He currently dwells in something called the California Men's Colony, which sounds more like a commune to me than a prison, but hey, look where it is. 

He plays sports (pickleball) and plays video games and watches TV and movies on a prison-issued tablet.

After a couple of hours of pickleball, it's time for a game of pickup basketball, and prison insiders (aren't they all!) say his jump shot is really improving.

He's also got an in with the guards and they use him to deliver documents etc to other inmates.

He has to keep an eye on his watch, though, because he needs to be in his cell for the daily headcount at 3 PM, after which, it's chow time...casserole, grilled chicken, salad.

   

The article I read goes on to say that Masterson has fit in well among the other criminals, has supportive friends, and is in with the older bunch, men who are working toward parole someday, so they try to behave.

I guess it seems a little confusing that a man who was found guilty of brutalizing women in the most barbaric fashion is now just one of the guys around the frat house, eating his chicken, playing pickleball, running errands.

My view of prison life was formed by watching hundreds of movies where James Cagney was dragged off to the chair or the Hole or slugged around by guards. Imagine Cagney as Rocky Sullivan being stood up by guards and telling them he had a 10 AM pickleball game, "so I gotta go!" And instead of tasty casseroles or diet-friendly broiled chicken, prisoners then were served gruel, and now and then, one of them would chuck his plate across the mess hall (that's where the name comes from!) and holler, "I ain't eatin' this slop no more!" and 17 guards would converge to help him change his mind about that.

I was once told that people who run the local juvenile detention center call the population "students" because calling them "prisoners" or "inmates" makes them feel bad about themselves.

Isn't that the point of punishment? What am I missing?