The Hate Factory: A First-Hand Account of the 1980 Riot at the Penitentiary of New Mexico

Great book. Really draws you in. It paints a good picture of what is going on as you are reading.

I thought this was a very good book. It desribes in good details the events during the riot, and the writing style itself is clear and to the point.My only gripes with the book is that around the 100-page mark it begins to drift toward the negative living conditions at the prison and the corrupt guards that the author feels was ultimately responsible for the convicts lashing out. This particular section is too long, goes on for an entire chapter as the author throws dates and names of people readers aren't particularly interested in.The author makes good points, and I am sure that was one of the main catalysts for the uprising, but at that point in the book the information began to feel redundant. From early in the book, the horrible conditions and the behavior of the guards towards the convicts was explained ad nauseum, so by the time the middle of the book comes around and those same topics are being addressed again and again, it begins to hit a small lag. At that point, it should have been solely about the riot and what actual events were happening. The guards were crooked, the prison was a dump, convicts were mad...by then we had gotten the point. It was time to move on and focus on the actual event and not dwell on the conditions that brought it on.Luckily, the lag passes quickly and we are back to what was happening inside the prison walls. While the author continually drifts back to the deplorable conditions as if to justify the monstrous behavior that was taking place inside, it is rarely to the point that it drives you insane and makes you want to start a bloody riot. Those passages are usually short and informative, and before long, we are taken back to the events during the riot.Overall, a very good, interesting book, and a very fast read. I blazed through this entire book in less than 2 days and would recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.

Well written and interesting

The inmate whose story this is was my mom's boyfriend for years, right after he got out of the pinta, early 1980s. I remember him and Georgelle working on this book together, sometimes in our living room, sometimes in hers. My mom didn't let me read it when it came out, because I was still a little one, but I read it a few years ago and it rocked me to my core. If you knew WG Stone (not his real name, by the way) you would have never known that he witnessed this horror--partook in this horror--lived through this horror. He was really just like any other blue collar guy. He was the only father I had for years and I just want people to know that he was a good person, a regular person, someone who took me for ice cream, to the Dukes game, to the Duck Pond at UNM, camping and fishing--understand that although he was a career criminal he was also a genuine, warm, loving, caring man who was really good to both me and my mother. Now imagine YOUR dad having to live through this kind of atrocity. These men are not monsters, but prison conditions like this can make them that way. This is an amazing, interesting, gory, thought provoking, sickening, and honest book by an amazing man (with help from a writer). If you have any interest in prisons and prisoners, sociology or horror, read this book. Just don't lose sight of the fact that these are genuine human beings who lived and died during this riot, inmates and guards alike.

I think some of the reviews are a little biased... not the book. I have seen a documentary on this event and read one other book. The other book was WAY more about prison politics than the actual riot. And being as this book was written from the mouth of an inmate (a writer wrote the book, not the actual man telling the story) you should expect him to say the things he say against the prison system. Buy his accounts of the riot are pretty vivid and disturbing. Plus I see that some people claim they believe he was "making stuff up" to make it sound worse. He wasn't. In the documentary I watched they interviewed a man that was one of the first people to enter the prison after the riots. The things he described are almost mirrored in this book. I think some people are going into this book with a biased opinion to start... and because the prisoner says things they don't agree with or believe.... they are calling him a liar. My question to them is.... Where you there? NO. He was.

Interesting book about worst prison riot in US history. Quick read.

They took it over one cold night in February 1980 by easily overpowering three guards and it wasn't long before they had the control panel and eventually the entire prison. When the nightmare was finally over 36 hours later, the scene in that prison was so disgusting it is said a large percentage of National Guardsmen and State Police who entered it's gates afterwords turned to alcoholism that they still suffer with to this day. I think one even committed suicide. Wally Stone saw the sheer mayhem first hand - the rapes, the torture, the dismemberings, the beatings, the burnings, the stabbings, the drug overdoses. This is the story but unfortunately it't not written right. The gripping accounts of the riot itself are great but interrupted with chapters of sloppy and biased political views from the author. Not to say that I don't agree that overcrowding, brutal guard behavior, idleness, and other harsh conditions contributed to the rage, but the behavior that was going on in that prison during the riot, especially the notorious massacre in Cellblock 4, was so evil and depraved that to take any blame away from the perpetrators themselves is irresponsible. I have also seen an interview with a guy on the BBC documentary who said that they were making demands for pool tables and steak mixed in with the 'legitimate' demands of improving conditions. Not sure if that's true but this book obviously makes no mention of anything of the sort.Nonetheless, it's a very fast read that is worth it if you get it cheap somewhere used. That's if you have the stomach for it.

Wow great book. Very detailed. Wish it was longer.

Very good story, but has too many boring facts about the prisons history and the history of corrections in the state, when in reality, i believe people buy the book to read the story of the riot itself....