Prison Rape: Scare tactic or reality?

[Disclaimer - Extreme Language] There are many verbally abusive comments in the youtube comments section. The videos also contain mature content to say the least.

Recently I've run into a topic that I had little to no familiarity with at all and it's become more interesting the more I learn of it. Prison society is far and away removed from anything I could imagine as being a valid existence. Oddly enough I do see pieces of it carrying over into the "free world"

After watching dozens of videos and webpages of personal stories I still find myself wondering just how in the world some of this is possible.

Turned Out: A Sexual Assault Behind Bars - Video Link

This is a youtube video series that puts a face on prison rape, sex, and even relationships. I immediately had mixed feelings about the authenticity of the videos. I can't imagine how people can openly admit to rape, murder, and assault without any fear of reprisal.

You only need to watch the first part to get the idea. However, you can't really get a clear picture without spending a lot of time looking into this. I know this topic may seem strange to lots of people but trust me it can be very interesting, especially when viewed from a safe location.


Here is a short clip of another documentary - Video Link

This one deals mostly with drug sales in prison. Now this guy may not out and out admit that he's raping anyone in this clip but he talks more about what he does in the actual series. And he definately says he uses sex to get close to people and them stab them.

I want some more opinions about the people that I view as actors in the Turned out Series. I'm sure that these people are probably really in prison but I can't force myself to believe that half of what they're saying is real.

There are many comments in both youtube videos and on the internet that prison rape is not as rampant as it may seem. Many people from Riker's Island in New York say that they never saw a single rape an that all prison sex was strictly between the homosexuals. There are also people that have been in European prisons that state that rape simply does not happen and you would be seriously beat up if you raped someone.

Please don't be afraid to brave the waters. Like I was saying I stumbled across these videos and believe it or not prison life is very entertaining. I can't find anything from google searches to indicate that these videos are faked to any extent. However I just get the feeling that the government is offering some type of reward for cooperation from the convicts.

Most likely a scare tactic. But maybe you should try some undercover work
and see what you come up with in prison. I'd like to see what kind
of conclusions you draw. Take one for the team?!

reply to post by keepureye2thesky


why bother going undercover? maybe i should just do a string of crimes and see if i get away with it. worse comes to worse i can learn more.

Originally posted by IvanObanionwhy bother going undercover? maybe i should just do a string of crimes and see if i get away with it. worse comes to worse i can learn more.

Now that's the spirit.

Yeah I believe prison rape does happen. There are sickos in the place. What they do is mix hardened criminals with no morals in with the accountant guy who embezzled thousands of dollars and got caught in together in General Population.

The strong prey on the weak. There are plenty of facts on thugs taking advantage of non thuggy types.

The accountant guy cannot defend himself if Barry Soetoro (for a made up name) The Satanist Thug, wants to get himself a little fresh meat.

I believe all prisons should separate it's prisoners by doing psyche evaluation tests and based on crime history and violent behavior. Thus all the tough guy will always be with the tough guys and all the accountant types can be together.

It's a huge conspiracy

Seriously, OP, yes... there are rapes in prison. It happens, and you can find lawsuits against prisons, inmates being charged and on trial for it, laws that work to prevent it, inmates saying they've been raped, or have raped others.

If you think the inmates, law makers, judges, attorneys, families and everyone is is lying about it to scare people into not going to prison, then you might only have one oar in the water sonny-boy... I mean, you are literally eating soup with a fork, arguing with a signpost, you have a nice house but no furniture, the lights are on but no one is home, I say, no one is home.

Originally posted by RestingInPieces
It's a huge conspiracy

Seriously, OP, yes... there are rapes in prison. It happens, and you can find lawsuits against prisons, inmates being charged and on trial for it, laws that work to prevent it, inmates saying they've been raped, or have raped others.

If you think the inmates, law makers, judges, attorneys, families and everyone is is lying about it to scare people into not going to prison, then you might only have one oar in the water sonny-boy... I mean, you are literally eating soup with a fork, arguing with a signpost, you have a nice house but no furniture, the lights are on but no one is home, I say, no one is home.

there's a huge difference between rape in prison and someone bragging about it on camera using names and dates. try and read the OP a little more carefully before you start making comments.

Originally posted by IvanObanion

Originally posted by RestingInPieces
It's a huge conspiracy

Seriously, OP, yes... there are rapes in prison. It happens, and you can find lawsuits against prisons, inmates being charged and on trial for it, laws that work to prevent it, inmates saying they've been raped, or have raped others.

If you think the inmates, law makers, judges, attorneys, families and everyone is is lying about it to scare people into not going to prison, then you might only have one oar in the water sonny-boy... I mean, you are literally eating soup with a fork, arguing with a signpost, you have a nice house but no furniture, the lights are on but no one is home, I say, no one is home.

there's a huge difference between rape in prison and someone bragging about it on camera using names and dates. try and read the OP a little more carefully before you start making comments.

It's as if you are completely ignoring reality. How interesting.

the reason i'm having a tough time deciding how much of this is fake is because there are opposing interests.

on the one hand you have the fact that police could use criminals to exaggerate stories to scare people out of coming to prison.

on the other hand there are stories about judges bringing more people to prison for longer to create more jobs and make more money.

i'm not sure exactly what's going on but i'd like some more opinions if people think that video is acting or reality or a combination.

The drug and sex trade happens prevalently in prison. Why would you doubt this?

Second line.

reply to post by IvanObanion


I used to work in a large county jail for eight years. My official title when I left was Specialized Deputy First Class. During my time with the Sheriff's office I was assigned to every division of the jail at some point (Transport, S.E.R.T., Intake etc.) however I spent most of time in Intake/S.E.R.T.

We held anyone sentenced to less than one year, all pre-trial felony and misdemeanor defendants, and post trial felony defendants awaiting transportation to the state prison system. Our Sheriff's Office was very professional and they best was expected of every deputy. If you couldn't cut it, you were shown the door very quickly. At the time our jail was the ONLY totally no frills jail in the entire nation (I'm not sure if anyone else has implemented this here recently). Inmates always told me that if you could do six months in our jail you could do six years anywhere else. In fact one guy said Maricopa County didn't have anything on us. I know he had been to Maricopa County because I personally was the releasing officer when they came to pick him up.

Only one time were two same-sex inmates discovered to be having sex at our facility. I was the officer that discovered the act. At no point did either inmate indicate that they were being raped.

As everyone knows the prison system is a revolving door so I saw the same inmates come through the system several times. I developed a relationship with a few of the guys that were regulars. They would give me information as long as I didn't burn them and return I would help them get a job as a trustee or something along those lines.

They told me stories of what went on in other jails and the state prisons. They said that during shower time some inmates would have sex in the showers. According to these inmates if you didn't associate yourself with those people they usually didn't bother you. Prison rape doesn't seem to be a problem in this state. I'm sure some incidents do occur but not as often as some may think.

Being attacked by other inmates is the biggest threat to most inmates but thats another story.

Thats my two cents

Heres a couple funny stories:

1. I picked up an inmate from one of the state prisons for a court date in my county. The next morning I was assigned to transport inmates to court. One them was gentleman that I had picked up the day before. I also had young inmate was accused of child molestation. The inmate that came from prison told the cho-mo that he had already sold him for a carton cigs so he better get ready for his sugar daddy. He wasn't serious but that kid didn't know any better and he was very scared.

2. I was assigned to take several inmates to state prisoner diagnostic center to be processed into the state prison system. During the trip one of the inmates who had never been to prison was crying. I didn't hear what was initially said but I heard one inmate tell him he was too old and ugly for anyone to (not so nice word for sex) you.

reply to post by derek_m24


thanks for your reply. this is what i'm trying to figure out. so do you think the videos are produced just to keep people from coming to prison?

if any of the videos are true how can the prisoners be allowed to confess to crimes on camera?

are you aware of any prisons that does have rampant rape? maybe it's just localized in certain areas.

Originally posted by IvanObanion
reply to post by derek_m24

 

thanks for your reply. this is what i'm trying to figure out. so do you think the videos are produced just to keep people from coming to prison?

if any of the videos are true how can the prisoners be allowed to confess to crimes on camera?

are you aware of any prisons that does have rampant rape? maybe it's just localized in certain areas.

Your welcome. I'm not sure. I worked in Arkansas. It very well could be that prison rape is more rampant in other states as every state has different styles of rehabilitation. Inmates here are sentenced to hard labor. I know other states inmates are not required to work.

I do know that most of sex offenders here are housed at a certain facility in this state.

Double post, apologies.

[edit on 27/6/2010 by Sendran]

I can't watch the video but I imagine this is from the US? The whole prison sodomy thing doesn't seem to be as prevalent in UK prisons, getting assaulted (usually horrifically) is more common. But then, that's probably because they're too busy playing Playstation to form sexual relationships.

I don't think prison rape is a scare tactic at all, it is a brutal reality. Rape doesn't have to be violent like Shawshank, consent through fear is rape too, and through fear the victim will admit consent to any authority. Admission of these things on film is not surprising, I imagine most of them won't see the light of day for a while and they've probably been charged and convicted of them before the documentary. Some will view it as somekind of badge.

Maybe some are just gay. I think gay people can be violent homicidal maniac psychos too, Jeffrey Dahmer springs to mind...

Sendran.

[edit on 27/6/2010 by Sendran]

I've been locked up for around 2 years. It wasn't all at one time and it wasn't all in the same place. I was in a County Jail for 11 months one time and I was in State Prison for about 9 months. The other times was a month here and a few days to a month there, all done in County Jail.

During that time I only heard about sex between two inmates in the County Jail once. It was consensual. The two inmates even moved in together. It wasn't common knowledge but it wasn't exactly a secret either.

It's not like there's too much privacy. There were 24 two man cells in the block. I'd say that about half of the 48 knew about what was going on. There isn't much new to talk about so the gossip spread pretty fast.

State Prison is a whole different place. Rape can and does happen there. I heard about several guys who had a rep as being Booty Bandits. I also saw a guy getting a blow job from another guy. There was also a rumor around about how a guy had been raped in the showers about a month before I got there.

I have a friend who's done time in a Federal Prison. He was there for several years. I suspect he might have been a Booty Bandit. He was always joking about gay stuff. I figured that it must be on his mind so he jokes about it. I finally told him that whether you're pitchin or catchin YOU'RE STILL HAVING SEX WITH A GUY. He finally got the message and laid off the unusual humor.

Far as I know Booty Bandits don't consider what they're doing as being gay. It's rape, it's not sex. They're NOT catchin, they're only pitchin. I guess they manage to justify it in their minds.

What happens in Prison stays in Prison.

First let me start by saying I currently work at a prison and have for several years. Prison rape does happen, but it is very rare. Much more rare than one would think. Correctional facilities do a pretty good job at separating inmates who may commit this type of act.

I have dealt with a "rape" one time in my years here. And while we considered it rape it was consensual between the inmates. (inmates cannot give legal consent therefore we processed it as rape)

Drugs on the other hand are more common. I have seen marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, and heroin found in the prison. This is something that is much harder to control as there are too many ways to get the drugs in.

Both my parents work at a prison and they have only caught inmates having sex twice. And they said it looked consensual. I think maybe rape used to happen a lot, but not now. At least, not in the prison they work at.

If you catch inmates having sex, your supposed to send them both to solitary.

Q: If you catch two cellies having sex, which one do you send to solitary first? The one on top or the one on bottom?

A: The one on bottom, because he already has his sh# packed.

Originally posted by IvanObanion
the reason i'm having a tough time deciding how much of this is fake is because there are opposing interests.

on the one hand you have the fact that police could use criminals to exaggerate stories to scare people out of coming to prison.

on the other hand there are stories about judges bringing more people to prison for longer to create more jobs and make more money.

i'm not sure exactly what's going on but i'd like some more opinions if people think that video is acting or reality or a combination.

It's trivial either way, don't you think?

The very existence of the videos should be evidence enough that they are being/can be used as a "scare tactic".

police could use criminals to exaggerate stories to scare people out of coming to prison.

Are you seriously worried about that? What negative consequences does that have? Are you worried that people who might want to go to prison aren't going to want to experience the joy of prison after hearing this?

on the other hand there are stories about judges bringing more people to prison for longer to create more jobs and make more money.

I'm sure being a judge takes its toll on anyone. They probably arbitrarily give out sentencing based on their mood sometimes. They are not robots.

To answer your question about the video...

Consider that it IS a production. Can you imagine the people in the video NOT being told to embellish the truth?

I'm curious to know why you are so interested in this? You wouldn't happen to have a court date in the near future, would you?

It sounds like it could just be scare tactics.

A really effective measure for making homophobic or highly religious criminals less likely to do crimes and end up in jail where they would be 'raped'. (That is suggesting that its male to male rape, like portrayed in popular media)

With popular phrases like 'Don't drop the soap' and movies portraying prison as a place where you are assaulted sexually, I think it could be an effective way to keep some people from committing crimes.

On the other hand, I would think that there are some mentally insane individuals that would sexually assault others, and the fact that they are ALEADY in jail would probably give them more incentive to, excuse my language 'go wild'.



Interesting topic.