DURHAM, NC, January 19, 2013 -- Prison warden J.J. "Iron Pinkie" Dibble is clearly uncomfortable as he shows a visitor his opulent office, once the domain of now-defunct Duke University's last President, Richard Brodhead.

"We were going to bring in standard government gray metal furniture," says the legendary jailer, "but we looked around and said, you know, that would just cost money, and we need that money for psychiatric counseling.  Besides, most of our inmates are from here, and it makes them feel at home, sort of like extended tenure.  Cuts down on the meds, don't you know."

In 2010, when Duke was forced to close its doors in the aftermath of a 2006 scandal involving false accusations of rape against three student lacrosse players, its property was sold at public auction to the state of North Carolina, which renamed it Duke Penitentiary, sometimes referred to as "Hoosegow of the South."

In keeping with its idyllic setting, Duke is a minimum-security prison primarily used to house white-collar criminals, former prosecutors, policemen, perjurers and approximately 88 former faculty members convicted in a series of riots that plagued the campus and the genteel streets of Durham throughout 2007.

As a result of Duke University's widely condemned treatment of the three students, paid enrollment in the once-prestigious school plummeted, as did contributions from alumni, many of whom also unsuccessfully tried to sell their class rings and Duke Memorabilia on ebay. 

After charges against the students were dismissed with apologies by North Carolina's Attorney General, the university's fate was sealed by a series of civil lawsuits brought by the three former defendants individually, the lacrosse team in a class action and their former coach, who won a wrongful termination action. 

While most of the lawsuits were settled to avoid public litigation, estimates of the total costs to Duke (and some members of its faculty) have been estimated to be as high as $75 million.  To add insult to catastrophe, no member of the Duke Law School faculty would provide pro bono counsel in defense of the school.

Asked to explain why so many of the school's faculty fell afoul of the law, Dibble pauses before answering.  "I'm just a jailer, not a criminologist.  But I been around a while, and I gotta tell you, the similarities to development of the Klan are worth some study.

"You got a bunch of people bound by a defensive, skewed ideology that becomes obsessive-compulsive.  They live and work in close proximity to each other.  One amplifies the views of another; one tries to outdo the other.  First come the letters and proclamations, which are immediately ridiculed, chastised even, by the outside world.  Then the secret meetings in robes and hoods.  Then marching around campus banging on pots and pans until all hours of the night.  Next thing you know, you got guys in bowties and women in lace-up boots tussling with the cops.  Not very original, actually.  Even after they were all offered pleas for diminished capacity, they just kept issuing manifestos."

When Dibble, long rumored to have been a chain gang guard in his youth, speaks of the prison's programs he can't quite stifle a chuckle. 

"We tried license plates, but this bunch couldn't safely operate the machines, so we had liability issues.  Then we tried a call center under contract to the credit card companies, but the inmates kept insulting the customers, calling them a bunch of spoiled, rich hooligans.  They couldn't run the laundry; they couldn't even serve food in the cafeteria.  So we've got them running one of those mail-order college dealies.

"There's not one single, useful course in the entire curriculum, but the whole thing costs just $59.95, with a free class ring and diploma if you pay extra shipping and handling.  The legislature had some reservations about it, but everyone knows it's a joke and not a scam, so it's working out.

"The only person who ever failed to graduate was Mike Nifong.  He only did a couple of years for malicious prosecution and abuse of public trust, but that boy is some more kind of dense.  Coulda been failed just because of who he is, though.  Can't say for sure.  Some of our inmate-professors can be a bit subjective with their grading.

"Last I heard, he and Crystal Gail were off somewhere running a pig farm and writing their memoirs.  Judith Regan bought it, but insists it be published as fiction."

"Gotta go now.  I'm presiding over vespers tonight. Gonna do 'Can't we all just get along?' I like that one, but I stand behind chicken wire to do it.  Rehab for some of these folks is going to be one of those progressive things."

(As this is being written, lawsuits against Durham and a number of former officials have been sent back to trial following a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision rejecting all claims of immunity.  Writing for the court, Justice Stephen Breyer cited the opinion of a foreign court in Iraq v. Saddam Hussein.)