Like the Yeti or the Sasquatch, the Frack is an almost monstrous breed. One would hardly believe that the Fracks exist at all if he hadn't experienced them for himself. The Fracks are throwbacks, psychological freaks. They are regressed from a once decent, even laudable people, the diligent immigrants who settled around Frackville. Frackville is a quaint, albeit has-been village in Schuylkill County in rustic East-Central Pennsylvania. There was a time when Schuylkill County was a bustling hive of decent immigrant miners and laborers. They were mostly old-world peasants from Ireland and Eastern Europe. Most were proud, courageous and hard-working. They daily risked their lives by descending into the abysmally unsafe deep mines. Whatever happened to that hardy, honest people? That was then. This is now. After so many have regressed into being Fracks, things are very different. Now, Schuylkill County is not a place you'd want to go to. It's a place you'd want to go through. Something happened. The once decent people morphed into Fracks. The mines are gone. The Fracks abandoned honest employment. They flocked into do-nothing jobs as prison guards. A Frack is an unfortunate evolutionary throwback, abusive, foul, uncouth, self-important, drunk, and often an addict. They are among the worst Pennsylvania has to offer. What happened were prisons. Prisons have a nasty way of corrupting the peasants who are employed in them. Prisons debase the whole community. Today, Schuylkill County's financial heart is a pair of state prisons. They have badly tainted the community. The one at Frackville is by far the worst. Sadly, descendants of the Irish seem to have sunk especially low. Early in the twentieth century one Irishman, the novelist, John O'Hara (1905-1970), gave Frackville its moment of fame. Living in the area, he made it into "Mountain City" in his short stories. In O'Hara's day, the area's Irish were coal miners. They lived by drudgery, drunkenness, poverty and grime. Then, as now, some of them were infected with an unfortunate gene of vicious violence. It was the Molly Maguire gene for murder and bullying. Today, crackpots like Bill O'Reilly best express that thugish gene. In the old days, the gene was focused on survival. It was a useful strength against oppression by exploitative Republican industrialist and mine owners. Nowadays the folks have been abased by the state prisons. The prisons subsidize the area's whole dilapidated economy. The people, at least those employed at the Frackville state prison, have regressed into bullying thugs, cowardly, lazy, arrogant, nasty and, as a group, dumb as a peanutbutter cracker. Admittedly, most (but by no means all) guards in all prisons are pretty much the dregs of civilization. I mean, who would willingly earn a livelihood by imprisoning others? Admittedly, all prisons have evil, even demented "screws." Frackville is different only in how many guards are so bad and in how extremely poor the staff, especially management is. They comprise a separate subspecies, Fracks! Ordinary Frackville prison guards behave so badly because the administration is utterly incompetent. Mismanagement by cowardly bullies is the example which ordinary dull-witted guards emulate. A Frack is weak-minded. He or she is easily mislead by authority figures. Oddly, the ordinary people in the community, those who aren't directly involved with the prison mentality, are really a rather decent sort. They still enjoy firehouse breakfasts, church picnics and school celebrations. The old folks bus to Atlantic City to gamble and the cultured visit Philadelphia and Washington. To many, history is as much a staple as beer. It's only those who are employed in the several prisons who have cultivated the very worst parts of their personalities. In my long years, I've been shipped from prison to prison. I've come to know hundreds of guards and prison employees. Some were decent persons. The Fracks at Frackville are different. They are a kind of cross between 1950s Alabama rednecks and intoxicated 1940s Nazis. Most have a generous measure of mental deficiency gilding the dung. Almost to a man, they are bullies. Coping with this modern breed of Molly Maguires is like warding off a fart in an elevator. One's only defense is fortitude. In this section of the website, I and others share with you normal people a taste of the unsavory nature of the Fracks. If you're given a choice, pick a dentist before you pick a Frack. The Frackville Prison Menu The Diligent: Visitors to Frackville Prison Turn Loose the Hounds! Visitor Assaulted by Prison Dog What to Expect From the Frackville Prison Staff An Anonymous Wife's Story About Frackville Prison Prison Has New Racket to Discourage Visits and Cheat Visitors A Visitor's Car Ransacked; Administrative Abuse My Visit to Frackville on the Seventh A Letter from a Frackville Visitor Frackville has Micro-Rules for Visitors Frackville Administration Frustrated a Visiting Complaint The Gulag: A Medieval Prison From Smithfield's Crooks to Frackville's Pussies Too Afraid to Cleanup the Diseased Prison What I learned At the Frackville State Prison Racism is Rampant at the Frackville State Prison Prison Health Services Deals In Death Patient Died Waiting for His Boots Prisoner's Cancer Interfered With Guards' Loafing Confidential Medical Records Revealed By Prison The Doctor Is a Dangerous Bully Nurse Vicki Stanishefski Fails to Help Prisoners Nurse Vicki Stanishefski Is a Danger To Her Patients Heart Attack Patient Subjected to Sadistic Ineptitude Please Don't Drink The Frackville Prison Water The Frackville League of Liars Sort of Like Ravioli The "Heart-Healthy" Diet Benefits Only the Prison Budget Prison Breakfast: Dining at 18 Degrees The Demanding Responsibility of Mess Hall Guarding The Truth About Frackville's Drug Treatment Program Hound Sniffles through the Medical Department Please Help Assemble a Photo Tribute to Guards Arrogant Culture of Abuse: Rotten From the Top Down The Frackville Administration Conceals Abuses Beatings at Frackville Prison Are Covered Up Mother "Quite Upset" About Her Son's Imprisonment at Frackville Big-Time Theft from the Prison Kitchen How Could We Ever Call the Fracks Pussies? Truth Must Sting the Fracks O Joy! Frackville Effectively Controls Dangerous Prisoners Larry Stritz's Yummy "Sheppards" Pie The Recipe for Delicious Frackville Prison Lasagna Frackville Poisons the Prisoners Personality Disorder: Where Do They Get These Guys? Shit For Brains, They're Not Just Bad, They're Dumb Mikey Conti Craves Attention Conti Fund Has Amassed 2 Cents! Pennsylvania Guard Carried Dope In Frackville Prison Sexual Assault and Harassment at Frackville Prison The Mannerless Frackville Prison Staff Bottom of the Bottom: Frackville Reality Frackville's Own Little Jack Horner Self-Important Guard Sergeant Endangered Patient's Life Guards Tried to Get Prisoner Attacked Using a Shakedown as Punishment You Wish You Were a FERT Like Me The Daunting Challenge of Counting All the Way to 2 The Brown Bag Terror Rookie Guards and the Frackville Reel Ringtown Mike Likes to Watch Me Shit Misery, Miserable, Misery An Expert Guard Should First Approve Canes for Gout Patients I've Got Questions About Queers Asshole Blubber, Retaliation and the Spread of Disease Frackville's Victims: Joseph Reif Died Needlessly at Frackville Prison Steve Gresiak Died at Frackville From Neglect Black Jewish Prisoner's Special Concerns John Wilson's Frackville Story The FWF - Frackville Wrestling Federation College Students Discover the "Frack Thing to Do" The Set-Up