and was accused of being so impressed by Abbott's evident writing talent that he did not consider the man's violent nature. In a 1992 interview in The Buffalo News, Mailer said that his involvement with Abbott was "another episode in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about or nothing to take pride in". Kosinski admitted that their advocacy of Abbott was, in essence, "a fraud.” Later years and death Abbott's second book, My Return (1987), was not as popular as In the Belly of the Beast. In 2001, Abbott appeared before the parole board. His application was denied because of his failure to express remorse, his lengthy criminal record, and his disciplinary problems in prison. On February 10, 2002, Jack Abbott hanged himself in his prison cell using a makeshift noose constructed from his bedsheets and shoelaces. He left a suicide note, the contents of which have not been made public. Views Abbott claimed that his incarceration from the ages of 12 to 18 was the result of "not adjusting well to foster homes", and his indeterminate sentence of up to five years for "issuing a check for insufficient funds" when he was 18 was another example of a system that criminalizes and harshly punishes those it deems unfit for society. In both his books, Abbott argues that society must reckon with its treatment of prisoners and that the prison system is fundamentally flawed, in that it treats prisoners like sub-human creatures. In In the Belly of the Beast he describes the helplessness that he says prisoners feel while at the mercy of a prison system that is seemingly never held accountable for its actions. He also hints at the subtle yet devastating effect prisons have on the whole of society. Abbott says: We have no legal rights as prisoners, only as citizens. The only 'rights' we have are those left to their 'discretion'. So we assert our rights the only way we can. It is a compromise, and in the end, I greatly fear we as prisoners will lose—- but the loss will be society's loss. We are only a few steps removed from society. After us, come you. Psychologist Robert D. Hare described Abbott as displaying the lack of conscience and empathy typical of psychopaths. When asked in a segment for the television news series A Current Affair if he felt remorse for stabbing