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US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

america.aljazeera.com

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Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#11

Post by streetnigga »

eurleif wrote: post #3

It seems that a majority of these cases were actually consensual, not assault: >Among the substantiated staff-on-inmate cases in 2011, 54 percent were committed by women, the report said. From 2009 to 2011, 84 percent of the substantiated staff-on-inmate cases involved a sexual relationship with a female staff member that “appeared to be willing,” compared to 37 percent of the cases involving male staff members durin…

This brings up the question, how can a relationship be considered willing when the person is imprisoned against their will?

Let's see the numbers for those released that continue the relationship, call THAT consensual instead. What the article speaks of is sexual assault.

Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#12

Post by steve19 »

dpeck wrote: post #5
eurleif wrote: post #3

It seems that a majority of these cases were actually consensual, not assault: >Among the substantiated staff-on-inmate cases in 2011, 54 percent were committed by women, the report said. From 2009 to 2011, 84 percent of the substantiated staff-on-inmate cases involved a sexual relationship with a female staff member that “appeared to be willing,” compared to 37 percent of the cases involving male staff members durin…

Consensual may not actually be given the power dynamics involved.

I am in no way in favor of staff-inmate relationships, but in most relationships the power dynamic is uneven. For example, in most marriages with children the breadwinner has significantly more power, but that does not make sex an assault.

Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#13

Post by streetnigga »

sdegutis wrote: post #4

I don't know much about prison, having fortunately never been there. So I just can't understand how an officer can have any kind of unsupervised and unseen time with inmates. I just assumed everything everywhere in a prison is monitored and recorded.

Keep in who is doing the monitoring, guards who look to be often involved sexual assault. See comment on consent I responded to in this article's thread. The situation of the victim is one of imprisonment, nearly every variable of their life is defined by the (sometimes rapist) guards.

Correctional facility is what they call them, yep.

Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#14

Post by streetnigga »

steve19 wrote: post #12
dpeck wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consensual may not actually be given the power dynamics involved.

I am in no way in favor of staff-inmate relationships, but in most relationships the power dynamic is uneven. For example, in most marriages with children the breadwinner has significantly more power, but that does not make sex an assault.

When the bread-winner imprisons his/her partner that is considered a crime. Lets not start with crappy analogies.

edit: Bring a response instead of a down-vote. This community's weak point is when discussion is put to the wayside in favor of a quick and easy up or down vote. More to the point: Eff off anonymous down-voters, a prison guard is not a bread winner in a sexual assault relationship. This is just a really bad analogy that shouldn't be given support.

Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#15

Post by calroc »

streetnigga wrote: post #8
calroc wrote: post #6

Hacker News? (Maybe I'm not getting it. That happens a lot.)

Considering the negative connotations of the word "hacker" in the justice system, what with the federal penitentiaries and all, this news is relevant.

Ah, I'll buy that. Thanks.

Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#16

Post by pmorici »

eurleif wrote: post #3

It seems that a majority of these cases were actually consensual, not assault: >Among the substantiated staff-on-inmate cases in 2011, 54 percent were committed by women, the report said. From 2009 to 2011, 84 percent of the substantiated staff-on-inmate cases involved a sexual relationship with a female staff member that “appeared to be willing,” compared to 37 percent of the cases involving male staff members durin…

There is a new Netflix series out called "Orange is the New Black" based on a true life story of a woman who gets sent to prison for being a drug mule for her lesbian lover and only gets caught many years later when she is leading a normal suburban life.

At any rate, one of the plot lines is about a relationship between a prison guard and one of the female inmates. It comes up in the course of events that basically any relations between a guard and a prison inmate are considered rape because you can't consent when you are in prison to someone who has power over you. Sort of how a minor can't consent even when another minor is involved. Apparently it is illegal under any circumstance between a guard and inmate as a matter of law in all 50 states as of 2006.

http://www.7dvt.com/2013prison-guards-pregnancy-tests-vermon...

Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#17

Post by [deleted] »

scarmig wrote: post #7

American prisons are a disgrace and a national shame, and prison rapes are one of the most viscerally appalling reminders of that. These statistics are likely misleading, though: it only includes the 9k or so cases that jail administrators reported. That's likely at least an order of magnitude less than happen in reality, and it's likely that the small minority that are actually reported by administrators have specia…

[deleted]

Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#18

Post by joshfraser »

Adam Gopnik's piece on The Caging of America does a good job explaining what's going on and summing up my feelings on the topic:

"Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncooperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized."

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/01/30/120...

Re: US Government: Guards may be responsible for half of prison sex assaults

#20

Post by thaumasiotes »

pmorici wrote: post #16
eurleif wrote: post #3

It seems that a majority of these cases were actually consensual, not assault: >Among the substantiated staff-on-inmate cases in 2011, 54 percent were committed by women, the report said. From 2009 to 2011, 84 percent of the substantiated staff-on-inmate cases involved a sexual relationship with a female staff member that “appeared to be willing,” compared to 37 percent of the cases involving male staff members durin…

There is a new Netflix series out called "Orange is the New Black" based on a true life story of a woman who gets sent to prison for being a drug mule for her lesbian lover and only gets caught many years later when she is leading a normal suburban life. At any rate, one of the plot lines is about a relationship between a prison guard and one of the female inmates. It comes up in the course of events that basically a…

To my knowledge, it is generally true that sexual contact between an inmate and a prison guard is legally rape no matter whether consensual or not.

This is a kludge in the law; obviously, female guards falling in love with inmates and sleeping with them are not being "raped" in any conventional sense, and neither are the prisoners (who are the notional victims).

However... we definitely do want to criminalize that conduct, and should be punishing it much more than we actually do; those guards are not on our side; they are on the criminal's side and routinely compromise the security of the prison.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/baltimore-jail-case-depi...

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