Madoff Jail Won't Be as Bad as Shawshank: Expert

The next big question for Bernie Madoff: Just how bad will prison be? It’s unlikely the disgraced financier will get cushy Club Fed accommodations, CNNMoney reports. Ed Bales, a consultant who prepares inmates for jail, says such facilities were shut down years ago. But Madoff can take heart, he says: It won’t be as bad as Oz or The Shawshank Redemption.

“They’re scared out of their minds,” Bales says of white-collar convicts. “They think they’re going to get jumped in the shower.” Given his sure-to-be-lengthy sentence, the best Madoff can probably hope for is a low-security prison, and even that won’t be great. “In low security you have some violence,” Bales says. “You may have some low-level Mafia type figures, you may have some people who have been involved in child porn.” (More Bernard Madoff stories.)