Saturday, Jul 19, 2008
Do criminals deserve prison rapes? Plus: Funeral parlors, drugs and Dubya; faking depression.
Aug 30, 1999 |
Rape as a disciplinary tactic
BY CHRISTIAN PARENTI
(08/23/99)
Prisons (and undoubtedly male rape) are dark corners in American society. Most would like to keep it that way. But as our prison population grows (thanks to the "war on drugs") and as education and rehabilitation programs decrease, we must face that a large segment of our population is being socialized to be animals. The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world, including the recently surpassed South Africa. I'd be curious to know if there are any such comparative studies done on prison rape. Is this an American phenomenon?
-- Alexandra Poolos
Who cares who rapes who? The inmates of these prisons are not wrongly convicted angels; they are hardened criminals. I say whatever tools the guards, wardens and prison systems have to keep the prisoners in line should be theirs to use. If prison rape is such a tool, then I really don't care what happens to them. I personally would like to see all maximum security prisoners terminated so that the taxpayers dont have to carry that burden anymore.
-- Douglas W McNeil
Surely it is madness to house nonviolent offenders -- often the casualties of our "war on drugs" -- with dangerous and predatory prisoners and then to release these wounded men back into the larger population without any treatment at all. If violence begets violence, how can we possibly justify this? It seems that our prisons are factories of violence, producing potentially violent men from nonviolent offenders, who are then exported right back onto our streets.
-- Jane Elizabeth Dougherty
Christian Parenti seems to have accepted without question the homophobic mind-set of the criminal subculture he was reporting about. If being the object of Wayne "Booty Bandit" Robertson's sexual desires meant that Eddie Dillard "was reduced to a psychologically broken, politically service 'punk' ... jailhouse chattel, to be sodomized, traded and sold like a slave," does Parenti mean for readers to draw the conclusion that homosexuality is degrading? If Dillard's involuntary introduction into gay life left him "psychologically broken," what are we to say about those who choose such a role voluntarily? If "subordinate status" in a homosexual relationship deprives an inmate of his manhood, does this mean that one-half of gay men are less than men?
Sarcasm aside, I believe prison staff should neither encourage nor tolerate homosexual conduct among inmates. But if there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, the question remains: Why did Eddie Dillard resist? Why should we sympathize with his homophobic resistance, rather than with the "transgressive" actions of Wayne Robertson? And what would the victim of Eddie Dillard's assault with a deadly weapon -- the crime that put Dillard within range of Robertson's unwanted attentions -- say of Dillard's claim of victimhood?
-- Robert Stacy McCain
Gaithersburg, Md.
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