How are celebrities treated in prison?  The question arose when my
roommate and I saw that Shaun Taylor was probally going to prison.  I
contested that he would be treated much better by the inmates and/or
guards because of his celebrity status, specifically in the black
community and my roommate thinks the opposite.

Hi sethfeinberg,

I hope you bet on it. You win. The fact that celebrities get
preferential treatment is widely known and written about.

Here's some examples, and if you use my search strategy keywords and
phrases (copy and paste each line exactly as I listed them), you'll
find a lot more.


REFERENCE:

Star Justice: Jail Birds
http://extratv.warnerbros.com/v2/news/0205/10/5/text.html
..."First up, Martha Stewart's revealing letters from prison. In the
March issue of Martha Stewart Living, the magazine's editor says she
and her boss are pen pals. She reveals that Martha is in great spirits
and ends her letters with lines like, "Let the fun begin."

So what kind of activities has Martha been doing at Camp Cupcake?
She's done a lot of reading, cooking and yoga. Stewart is also looking
forward to her release next month, ordering seeds for her garden and
making "to-do" lists of chores.

Meanwhile, across the country, it was judgment day for Courtney Love
in a Los Angeles courtroom. The 40-year-old rocker was sentenced for
attacking a woman with a liquor bottle and a flashlight. The judge put
Love on probation for three years. She left the court without talking
to reporters.

On Thursday, Love's lawyers were back in court on a separate charge of
drug possession..."


Celebs behind bars get -- or provoke -- special treatment
http://www.freep.com/news/extra2/qprison14.htm
..."From O.J. Simpson and Zsa Zsa Gabor to Manuel Noriega and Robert
Downey Jr., American jailers have generally rued the day high-profile
prisoners came into custody.

Just ask Eric Seleznow, spokesman for the Montgomery County Detention
Center in Rockville, Md., temporary home of troubled boxer Mike Tyson.

"Tyson was sentenced Feb. 5 and my world changed rapidly for me,"
Seleznow said with a sigh. "What a drain to county government
resources a celebrity like Tyson is..."


What Martha Stewart May Have to Look Forward To - Celebrity Inmates 
http://channels.netscape.com/celebrity/becksmith.jsp?p=bsf_celebinmates
..."In 1982, sultry Italian star Sophia Loren was sentenced to 30 days
in a women's minimum security prison in Caserta, Italy, for failing to
report $180,000 on her 1963 income tax return, for example. She wound
up only having to serve 17 days of the sentence, and though it was a
great scandal at the time, it's now a largely forgotten chapter of her
illustrious life.....While in Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail
after his arrest in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole and her
friend Ronald Goldman, O.J. Simpson reportedly was allowed 10 more
hours a week to walk outside his cell than other inmates. After his
lawyers made a fuss about Simpson's bed aggravating an old football
injury, he was given sleeping pills and a cervical pillow. The special
arrangements for Simpson reportedly cost the county more than $230,000
in his first four months in jail.....


A Case Study in Celebrity Justice
http://www.cornellsun.com/news/2003/04/10/Sports/A.Case.Study.In.Celebrity.Justice-1331846.shtml


More Deserve Mercy than Robert Downey, Jr.
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/10795/
..."The pampered treatment of celebrities such as Downey carries
another grave danger. It could fuel a public backlash to the mounting
efforts by many drug reform advocates and public officials to push
Congress to eliminate the gaping racially-warped disparity in the drug
sentencing laws..."



LETTERS FROM A BROAD: Go Tell It on the Mountain 
http://www.popmatters.com/columns/gadette/060301.shtml
Contrast this to the current treatment of celebrities arrested on any
sort of sex scandal. Hugh Grant, Paul Reubens, George Michael, Jeffrey
Jones ? not one among them has had to do any jail time. Instead, they
are given probation and in some cases, their names are included on sex
offender databases. No poisonous gruel. No hard labor. Sure, their
behavior is decried in headlines jumping off of every tabloid in town,
but at least they don't have to wear orange jumpsuits. (At least they
don't have to wear those vile orange jumpsuits.)


Union Complains of Special Treatment for Diana Ross
http://talkleft.com/new_archives/009109.html
..."[Police Chief] Walters allowed Ross to keep a cellular telephone
in her jail cell, have food delivered and let her go home in the
middle of her sentence ..."


That'll get you started. It was a pleasure to look this up for you!


~~Cynthia


Search strategy used at Google:
celebrity prison treatment
"celebrities in prison"
"celebrity inmates"
"treatment of celebrities" prison

Both Jeffrey Archer and Jonathon Aitken sound as if they were treated
rather well by the other inmates
- my impression is that the authorities (at the top) were rather harsh
as they were nervous of publicity.

Probably a lot depends on the personality of the person, my guess is
that if they behave arrogantly they are in for a kicking.

I would think that the nature of the crime might have a lot to do with
how a celebrity will be treated in prison. If Michael Jackson had been
convicted of child molestation, I'd expect that he would have been in
danger from other inmates and would have had to be in solitary
confinement.