So I like to sit in the yard and think about things on a meaningful level. Years ago I would sit in prison and all I thought of were drugs, drinking, fucking prostitutes, rape,violence. You name it i bet it crossed my mind back then.I do get scared sometimes these days because someone gets smart. And like you said, i do have a smart mouth. And years ago I was pretty capable of backing it up. Now not so much. Plus another fight for me is a death sentence. I just don’t think I could do the rest of my life behind a cell door without serious mental health issues. And I am pretty sure I would choose suicide over living in a cell for what’s left of my life.
I have often likened being in prison, to an animal living in a cage. Or a zoo if you will. People come and walk by your enclosure. They don’t care for you, they have little to no compassion for you. They just want to see the animal up close, and safely away from it. Prison isn’t really “Fun”. Its not meant to be. It does what it was intended to do. (Confine you ) Punish, well you could make a case that it does have the ear marks of punishment. Truth be told, it takes animals to control animals. This isn’t meant insultingly. Think about it, what type of individual wants to work to retirement as a prison guard. There has to be some kind of disconnect in the brain. One that allows you to come to work each day and do what normal people would not. Looking at genitals one or more times a day, during strip searches. Searching cells daily. Sitting countless hours on your ass getting fat. Having to break up violent confrontations involving knives (Shanks ) in prison lingo. Fist fights. Witnessing death ( usually violent ) more often than a person should. You often see these TV programs like Lockup or Jail. What is often shown is an inth of the true realities of prison life.
-Brent Brents 9-4-16
Tag Archives: Brents
it takes animals to control animals
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You should have a healthy reserve for the guy fresh out of prison
So the prison I’m in is 75% sexual offenders. And people let me be flat out honest. You should have a healthy reserve for the guy fresh out of prison. Most really don’t give a fuck about you, or any one else. Child sex offenders will find there ways to vulnerable children. Rapists will rape. Drug addicts will do unspeakable acts if they think it will get them their dope. Gang members will walk out the doors and go right back to the gangs. Shooting each other, and innocent people. Its frickin scary to just sit there and listen to the conversations, and watch the behavior.
I think about just how much alike I was to these people. Oh don’t get me wrong, if I were to stop doing what I do each day. I would still be the same as they are. In fact the only thing that separates me from their behavior, is my faith. My belief in our lord Jesus Christ. And the twelve steps of NA. And my knowing I can never ever stop living the life style I live now.
Its truly amazing how much clarity one can achieve when they put forth the effort to become a better human being. Exercising integrity without reservation in every thing you do. Be humble no matter what. Be truthful in all your affairs. Be honest and critical of yourself. Most of all love genuinely.
So I realize I will always be sexualy deviant in my thinking. Maybe not to the extant I was. But I still sometimes have rape fantasies. Yet I really don’t think about sex to often. When I get pissed off, I sometimes have the fantacies or thoughts about raping or hurting the person I am mad at.
So I’ve come a long way from the person I was twelve years ago. I really believe in the thought that true acceptance of self, only comes with a very thurough and honest willingness to look at ones self and not hold any thing back.-Brent Brents 8-25-16
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What got me off was the power I could exercise over people
I made choices based on prior encounters with bad human beings, just like myself. I used my abuses as excuses to brutalize people. And I knew exactly what pain and horror I created in these peoples lives both physically and emotionally.
In the bible it teaches us not to lead little children astray. For it is an abomination in the lords eyes. To love thy neighbor as we would have them love us. Not to murder, covit thy neighbors wife, lie, cheat steal, etc.
Yet as I sit here thinking about what I see in here every day I am more disgusted with myself. Because I have always known and have had compassion for animals, and people. I know BS right. Its true though. when I was being beaten or raped by my father, or fucking my mom, or raping some other human being. I knew right from wrong. What got me off was the power I could exercise over people.-Brent Brents 8-25-16
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The sex offenders like to use the excuse, oh it was the drugs.
I will see many come and go as I spend my life in prison. I’ll see many of them get out, only to hurt someone else and come back. Not just once or twice. Several times, behind a crime that usually ends up being drug or gang related. The sex offenders like to use the excuse; oh it was the drugs. We all know that’s a load of horse shit.
So in NA tonight I spoke about feeling hysterical sometimes when I get real manic. I realized that I get hysterical about small problems. And I turn them into big unnecessary problems. I really didn’t like realizing that about myself. But I will tell you this. I love my NA. Just sitting there sometimes I here a person speak and I get insights into my own thoughts and feelings. It is interesting how alike we all are. Yet most of us intensely insist, (We are not like those guys!) When we are the same in so many ways. Meth addicts often become sexualy addicted. Or addicted to sugar. Some of us heroin addicts tend to have to take a crap Right before we fix, or on our way to score dope.
So where am I going, well as an addict I have victimized more people than I realized. Selling heroin to people, victimizes them and their families, friends, and others in their lives. Not to mention the victims they will create when they get desperate for their fix. Because as we all know, addicts will do any thing to get their dope. And yes sexual deviance is a huge part of a great deal of addicts lives. Whether they will admit it or not. I’m not saying addiction makes sexual deviance excusable. Quite the opposite. Drugs often bring a persons true colors to light.-Brent Brents 8-25-16
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It is creepy some times to hear the depths of violence and hatred that is spoken
I was sitting in the yard the other day. Just watching every one and every thing. Listening to words and conversations as people passed by. Its is creepy some times to hear the depth of violence and hatred that is spoken and communicated. As I sat there I thought of the countless victims we are all responsible for. Known and unknown. All the hurt we’ve caused so many thousands of people here alone. Not to mention the hidden damage we’ve caused our families friends and other innocent people. Its a brutal reality when you get right down to the plain truth of it all. Then one has to think about the lasting effects of their hate and violence.
The children’s lives, we’ve violated them in so many ways. Sexualy, physically, Mentally. And it is a life time of violation. Sure we may only do it once. Rape one child or adult, murder someones family member, rob some person or place. These things leave a wake of damage. Often there is no one to help repair the emotional trauma.
-Brent Brents 8-25-16
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What would Brent Brents tell his younger self? “That the empathy he has, and is about to abandon is crucial to becoming a man”
So what would I tell the younger me. Honestly that would depend on what age were talking about. I suppose it really wouldn’t be that complicated. I was a pretty savy individual at the age of ten.
So first thing would be run, and run far. And stay away. I have put a lot of thought into the years between ten and thirteen. Being beaten wasn’t nearly as damaging to me as the rape. The rape taught me how to be deviant. And it was about this time I learned it could cause much more than just physical pain. I began to get an understanding of emotional abuse.
So I think I would like this kid to know that the secret world of abuse was not shameful or ok. I would tell him that the empathy he has, and is about to abandon is crucial to becoming a man. I would tell him that he should tell every one he could about the abuse at home. Every time, and not give up in that pursuit at getting his life back…
Even though I was savy, I wasn’t mentally capable of dealing with the the emotional conflict inside. Even then I couldn’t deal with the ridicule, and I got enough of it as it was. I suppose the biggest thing would have been nurturing the empathy I did have. Had I done that. Maybe I would be writing this in the comfort of my own home, instead of a prison cell. So yes I would yell that kid to love every one and every thing. Have those painful feelings when he sees wrong. And feel empathy and embrace it like his life counted on it.
-Brent Brents 7-23-16
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Have You Ever Met a Monster, Part IV: Our society cares more if a sexual assault victim is the right kind of victim
Brents has often said that by the time he was 9, his brain was broken.
What if someone had intervened in his life early on? A teacher? A neighbor? How could no one have noticed that boy who went to school with bruises, smelling like urine because he had wet the bed the night before rather than creep down the hall to the bathroom and risk waking his father?
If you help an abused child, you might be preventing a lifetime of pain—for more than one person.
So many people live in what I call “garage houses”—where the garage is the dominant feature. They pull up to their garage at night, the door goes up, their car goes in, and the door comes down. They stay inside their house until they leave the next day. They can’t tell you the name of the family down the street. They won’t interact and they sure won’t intervene.
What if we dared to care—without hesitation, without condition?
It’s a harsh truth that our society cares more if a sexual assault victim is the right kind of victim. Remember how police told Margaret the DNA from her case would sit on a shelf for at least two months? When Brents attacked victims in a high-income neighborhood, the DNA was processed within hours.
Lady Justice might be blind, but she can sure have a champagne taste.
Margaret and I talked often while her case wound its way through the court system. During a hearing in July 2005, Brents pleaded guilty to Margaret’s attack.
Like many survivors who struggle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Margaret was terrified of leaving her house. She had flashbacks, nightmares. She couldn’t hold down a job. Her marriage fell apart.
On the day before the hearing, Margaret asked me to deliver a message to Brents for her, and I agreed. And this was her message:
“Tell him…I forgive him.”
It’s stunning, isn’t it? How could she forgive this man who wounded her so, who nearly took everything from her?
She said, “I’m not feeling bad for the man who tried to kill me, but for the little boy who had the same thing happen to him.”
And she said, “Hating is not hard. But if I go on hating him, I will never get over it.”
Then she added, “If it was me, I would want people to try to help me or try to listen to me and not just look at me like I’m an animal or a monster.
She inspires me. If Margaret can forgive Brent Brents, we can forgive anybody.
This case had a profound effect on my life.
It taught me that we’re all connected, and turning our backs on others is really abandoning ourselves.
It made me realize that I didn’t like the journalist I had become. It was actually Brents who pointed out to me that he and I had something in common: We were both driven.
I quit that job shortly after his case ended. I will never again work in a newsroom because the desperate competition for ratings is unhealthy for me, in many ways.
And I no longer knock on a survivor’s door unless I’m invited.
I began interviewing Brents because as a journalist who has spent a lifetime reporting on sexual violence, I wanted an answer to the question, “Why?”
He began as a bug under a microscope–and that’s what I told him.
He became a lesson in humanity and compassion.
Even so-called “monsters” have things they’re afraid of.
Brents wrote me about his. He said,
“My biggest fear is that I will die (pause) without ever having done anything good.”
That’s why I tell this story. Thank you for listening.
BRENT J. BRENTS — At age 13
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Have You Ever Met a Monster? Part II
Note from Amy: Here is the next excerpt of the transcript of my TEDx talk:
Police caught him a few days after Valentine’s Day. At the start of that weekend a detective had gotten him on the phone and said Turn yourself in, you little punk. Brent Brents essentially replied, Come find me. That weekend he raped five victims, including two children, and nearly beat a young woman to death. The DNA from those cases was processed within hours and the manhunt that followed ended in a dramatic car chase into the mountains, where police captured him at gunpoint.
This kind of story causes a media feeding frenzy. Reporters swarmed the jail, but I didn’t —I didn’t think it would do any good.
Instead, I sent him a letter on plain stationary—handwritten, two sentences: Dear Brent, I went to Arkansas where I talked to your mom and sister. If you were to ask them, they would say I treated them with dignity and respect, and I will do the same for you.
I then gave him the number to the newsroom and told him to call collect anytime. And because I figured he’d be getting a lot of hate mail, I added a note to the back that said: Please don’t be afraid to open this.
At the end of that week police released a statement about another confirmed victim of Brents. Since they protect the identity of a victim of sexual assault they will only release the cross streets close to where it happened.
Get thee to those cross streets, you and a photographer, editors said. Find this anonymous victim, and get her to talk to you.
Right.
So off we went to those cross streets and we found…a sea of rental units, like giant Legos, for rows and rows in either direction.
We knocked on doors for hours—no luck. It was close to dark when we saw a woman walking her dog—dog walkers are always great for information—and she said the handyman had told her about a woman who’d been attacked and she gave us the handyman’s door number and he gave us the victim’s door number and I knocked and a man answered and I saw this tiny, dark-haired woman hiding behind the door and I identified myself and she came out and said, “You scared me.”
Her name was Margaret. And she told me her story. Her attack was nearly three weeks earlier and she still had yellow outlines of bruises on her neck. She was coming home after running errands when Brents had rushed her at her front door. She had seen him before-she figured he had stalked her for about three days. She fought him, and he beat and choked her before he raped her.
Margaret pointed to her couch, which had a big chunk cut out of the upholstery. The police had taken it for evidence because that was where the rape had happened. When you can’t afford a new couch, and you can’t afford to break your rental lease and move—and Margaret couldn’t—then you have to live with reminders of your worst nightmare.
She said the police had told her it would take about two months to process the DNA. They gave her no hope of solving her case. Then she saw a story about Brents being wanted on T.V. and recognized his mug shot as her attacker.
One of the last things she said to me that night really struck me. She said, “I hate him, yet I still feel sorry for him. An animal, poor creature.”
A week later Brents called me.
One of the first things he said to me was, “I’m not going to give you anything.”
I love it when people call me and say I’m not going to talk to you. “OK!”
Then he said he had one question for me, and anything further depended on my answer.
And he said, “Everybody says they hate me, that I’m a monster. Do you think so?”
And without thinking I said, No, I don’t. You’ve done monstrous things, but I don’t consider you a monster.
And that’s how we started a correspondence. I did so on one condition: that he tell me the truth. In one letter he wrote, “Don’t trip I’ve actually stood two feet away from you in an elevator” and rolling my eyes I pulled out a piece of paper to fire back that we had a deal, so don’t try to b.s. me—when I realized it had indeed been him on the elevator that day, the man who had stared at me and whose very presence had caused me to run to the newsroom like a frightened rabbit.
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how the hell do i forgive
Note from Amy: For the first time, Brent Brents was able to read the book I wrote about covering his case, Diary of a Predator: A Memoir, which includes the correspondence between us leading up to his trial and immediately after. It’s what he’s referring to here.
Our letters well, i obviously was in a state of childhood mentaly most of that first year. I see that now. As i read i was sad for the child, but angry at the man and rightly so. He was evil and scary as hell. I look back at myself and think how the hell do i forgive that person. Much less anyone else forgiving me.
-Brent Brents 1-20-16
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Diary of a Predator 
psychiatric patients fighting globally for human rights & better treatment protocols
Reader Comment: I sure object to the listing of NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) under the resource column on the left of the screen. NIMH does not address issues of trauma and only seeks to medicalize human experience- the disease model. NIMH would tell you Brent Brents was born with a biological disease that caused him to do the things he did, and would discount his early life experiences completely. Psychiatry, despite all evidence to the contrary, is intent on proving this model, which we fight against. I am a member of the CSX movement, psychiatric patients fighting globally for human rights & better treatment protocols, and I reference your book ALL THE TIME in our dialogues. (not to mention I lived in Denver at the the time, and also worked at 6th Avenue Pets) I plan to bring you & the book up tomorrow night (02.21) on BlogTalk Radio, Late Night with a Hero, which is why I came over to take a look at your website). –Amy Smith
We are, as a people, frustrated and outraged at every step of the way. We have few basic human rights (in Colorado, a person can be taken from their home in the middle of the night, with no information given to anyone regarding possible destination, with no due process, and can be held for five business days, which can span two weekends in some circumstances), our treatment protocols are driven by industry greed like no other, with little science to back up the subjective, nebulous criteria in the DSM, treatment guidelines or suggested medical protocols. The drugs are addictive, seriously damaging, and cause serious comorbid disease. New treatments in the pipeline are even worse- implants, shock & surgery- ALL with absolutely no valid or robust scientific foundation. It is appalling, but no one really cares about us much and we are very expensive.
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