In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Capote gives detailed descriptions of the prisons Dick and Perry are kept in after being arrested for the crime of murdering the Clutter family. By describing Dick’s comfortable state in the regular county jail compared to the lonely and dreary condition Perry endures while kept in the women’s cell, Capote makes the reader feel even more sympathy for Perry as Capote has already made Perry seem like the pitiful innocent one of the two murderers.

In the beginning of the fourth part of the book, Capote describes the jail cell where Perry is held as being boring and lonely. Perry sees that Mr. Hickock, Dick’s father spent three hours at the county jail visiting Dick. After witnessing this, Capote writes that, “Neither Perry Smith’s father nor sister wrote him or came to see him….Except for the squirrel, except for the Meiers and an occasional consultation with his lawyer, Mr. Fleming, Perry was very much alone” (259). Perry has been with Dick for the past year. From traveling together across the states and trying to outrun the law, Perry was rarely alone; he always had a close companion. Now that Perry is thrown into the woman’s jail cell all alone, he can only entertain himself with his own solitude and haunting thoughts. His boredom reaches a level where his main activities of the day include training a squirrel he sees outside his window and cleaning his table and folding his blankets. On the other hand, Dick, being held in the regular men’s county jail, is still upset about his current situation, but he seems better than Perry because he is not alone. Capote describes Dick’s prison situation as being, “But he [Dick] was not isolated, there were people to talk to, a plentiful turnover of drunkards, forgers, wife-beaters, and Mexican vagrants; and Dick, with his light-hearted “con-man” patter, his sex anecdotes and gamy jokes, was popular with the inmates” (262). Where Perry is going mad from boredom and isolation, Dick is receiving long visits with his father and making new friends in jail. By showing the contrast between the two situations, Capote makes the reader feel that this setup is unfair. He wants the reader to form the opinion he formed when investigating the crime by thinking that Perry, the kinder more sensitive man deserves a nicer cell with other people surrounding him. Dick, the obnoxious pervert is not worthy of a cell and other prison inmates to bond with. Once the reader understands Capote’s intentions and sees that Perry should be held in the regular jail with people to talk to, they feel bad for Perry. From Capote’s biased perspective, the reader feels that the innocent and sensitive man is punished unfairly while the awful ruthless man is treated better, and in a sense, rewarded with new friends.