The rapists in charge

Posted by Maria Luisa Tucker at 2:28 PM on April 24, 2006.

We've often heard the refrain that rape is not about sex, but about power. When it comes to prison culture, that refrain seems especially appropriate.

Last week, the CDC released a study about HIV transmission in Georgia's prison population. Most headlines focused on the somewhat surprising finding that 91 percent of HIV-positive inmates contracted the disease before entering the system. What seemed more telling to me, however, was the info below the fold regarding the incidence of sex reported between corrections officers and inmates. Gay.com reported Saturday:

Besides low HIV transmission rates, the study revealed several other surprises, namely … a high number (37) reporting having consensual sex with corrections officials.

But prisoner rights experts contend that sex between inmates and corrections officials cannot be considered consensual.

"It's inherently coercive because the official has power over the inmate's life in ways that don't exist in the outside world," said Kathy Hall-Martinez, co-director of Stop Prisoner Rape, a national group working to prevent sexual assault behind bars.

Corrections officials control when an inmate eats, sleeps, and whether or not he can bathe or have time outside, Hall Martinez said.

"They control everything about the inmate's daily life, so if an inmate refuses sex there's a great chance it will result in the lowering of the quality of his life," she said. "There is no such thing as consent in that situation."

While Donaldson's fate certainly didn't get much acknowledgement in previous decades, recent years have seen some awareness of the issue. The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (pdf) made legislators aware of the extent of the problem:

"Experts have conservatively estimated that at least 13 percent of the inmates in the United States have been sexually assaulted in prison. Many inmates have suffered repeated assaults. Under this estimate, nearly 200,000 inmates now incarcerated have been or will be the victims of prison rape. The total number of inmates who have been sexually assaulted in the past 20 years likely exceeds 1,000,000."

"Among women behind bars, young and mentally ill inmates and first-time offenders are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault by male staff. Male custodial officials have vaginally, anally, and orally raped female prisoners and have abused their authority by exchanging goods and privileges for sex. Male corrections officers are often allowed to watch female inmates when they are dressing, showering, or using the toilet, and some regularly engage in verbal degradation and harassment of women prisoners. Women also report groping and other sexual abuse by male staff during pat frisks and searches."

Maria Luisa Tucker is a staff writer at AlterNet and associate editor of the Columbia Journal of American Studies.