Straight up violent rape is a crime sometimes committed against young women, old women, nuns and nurses. That is, against other people in the “protected” category, like children.
From the testimony of prison guards I’ve known, some rapists have had a pretty rough time in jail, but not in general enough to automatically get protective custody.
There’s a popular notion that a lot of rape goes on in prison. It would seem if it was looked down upon so much, this wouldn’t be the case. What gives?
I know a guy who served four years in prison for sexual offense. He was involved with an underage girl who had lied about her age. Her parents got wind of it and pressed charges. This wasn’t Romeo and Juliet shit though; the guy was in his 50s and the girl was 16. The official charge, on his official record, was child molestation.
He told me that nobody messed with him in prison even though they knew what his charges were, and I believe him, because
He is a decorated Army officer who served in combat in three wars (Vietnam, Gulf, very beginning of Iraq invasion). He looks like and carries himself like what he is, a professional soldier.
He helped other prisoners with their legal shit because he had a working knowledge of the legal system.
I have no comment here on the situation that resulted in his imprisonment, other than that he acknowledges that he fucked up, and had/has the full support of his family throughout, and after, his incarceration. He never had any brushes with the law before or since.
OP here… Off-topic but I was wondering:
How in blazes did we avoid a “Need answer fast?” reply in this thread?
Is it true that most prisoners were sexually abused as children?
Most prisoners are in prison for bullshit reasons.
Over here: Robert Sapolsky: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst - YouTube
Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford biology professor shows a chart of the interaction of genes, environment and behavioral traits. One gene results in antisocial, violent behavior if it’s combined with childhood abuse. Another result in angry temperament if combined with childhood sexual abuse.
I’m guessing that a fair number of people in prison have an axe to grind with people who abuse children.
I agree with this, but I would just add that it’s a form of “cheap grace”.
Fact is that the vast majority of people, no matter how evil and immoral they might be, would never molest a child, simply because they have no urge to do so. Pedophiles are a very small percentage of the population. That doesn’t apply to most other crimes, which arise from urges and needs which are common in the population at large.
So if you’re a criminal who has no moral compunctions, you might see yourself being a thief or murderer or doing any sort of other crime where the reward is something that you would enjoy. Even if you’ve not done any of those things, you can relate to the guy who did, and who knows if you might one day do them yourself. So you’re not going to adopt a moral code under which those things are a special category of crime. But molesting a child is not something you would ever do or could imagine yourself ever doing. So it’s very easy to adopt the position that this is a special category of evil that no one should ever be forgiven for doing. You get to feel good about your own moral standing and pay zero price for it.
This is a very good point and probably more accurate than mine. We not only see this in prison, but in society. It’s easy, for example, for a devout Christian to condemn homosexuality when that is a “sin” that he simply has no desire to engage in. People who are not addicted to alcohol or drugs can peer down their noses at those who are simply because they are not genetically inclined to become addicted to controlled substances.
Racism is a closely related example. A poor white guy can say that a black man is inferior because, no matter what, he will never be a black man and fall victim to his own criticism.
So, in essence, the majority of the criminal code are at least things that we understand. Although neither you nor I would murder someone, we can understand how anger and hate would lead someone to do that. We would not drive home drunk from a bar, but could see why someone else might do that because he needed his car the next day. I would never smack my wife, but understand how someone with less anger control might do so in certain situations.
However, there are a minority of crimes that only apply to a minority of people who even have a desire to commit them. Pedophilia is definitely one.
Hi Quadgop & Little Nemo
Finally retired from the service so I can comment a little more openly - looks like we’re a little club of our own on the Straightdope.
First thing that most of you probably do not realise is that offenders have a completely different metric to the logic of those who are not habitual offenders, and when it comes to prisoners the difference between your logic and theirs is even more stark.
What it means is that the reasons that you can imagine about why sex offenders are so hated by other prisoners will only slightly be covered by prison logic.
The poster who stated that prisoners like to have someone else to look down on is pretty much on the money, but the reasons for looking down are probably not what you expect. When people live in coercive communities, especially in communities where there is little self determination there is often a need to set themselves up somewhere in the pecking order by finding a perceived enemy.
We end up in a Looking Glass world where everything has a different logic and this works only in that particular environment. When outsiders to this world try to analyse the logic they will find a mass of logical contradictions.
For example most prisoners will claim they love their children - hence the hate for sex offenders, yet the vast majority have never provided competent parenting, stable family lives and are frequently violent to their children, and spouses, indeed quite a number of them will be in prison for violent acts toward close family members. Add in their offending behavior often deprives their families of material support and that prisoners main consideration is almost exclusively for themselves and for no other person.
By the standards of our own personal non-offenders logic, prisoners don’t actually love their children in any meaningful way, except as personal possessions that can be owned and controlled. By most standards prisoners are often abusive to their children and families in ways that are pretty reprehensible, such as stealing and selling the personal property of their children, physical violence and gross neglect.
Offenders will then minimise the severity of their behavior - and generally transfer the blame for their offending on to others, or even that they simply ‘cannot help themselves’ and are in fact their own victims - is not common to find they accept fully the personal responsibility for their actions and it is less common still for prisoners to actually make genuine plans which are put into practice to make personal changes.
Prisoners will often portray themselves as underprivileged and victims of the social and criminal justice system by citing unjustified favourable treatment of other offenders - and this frequently means that they consider that sex offenders are somehow better treated, with lesser prison terms, more favourable treatment by the system in myriad ways. (it has to be said here that the vast majority of sex offenders tend to be very quiet and well behaved - and of course the prison system does tend to use good behavior as an incentive to earn greater privileges - but good behavior is an option that is available to all prisoners)
These are simply excuses to distract themselves from their own horrible nasty little personalities - its easier to point out the flaws in another stereotyped group of people than it is to look critically at oneself and ask the difficult questions.
In some ways the manner in which prisoners evaluate sex offenders is very similar to racism - it is based on false assumptions and stereotyping and hate.
I was watching “How to Survive Prison” on Netflix. One of the prison reform activists pointed out that even the murderers are not completely devoid of morality. Usually, there is a set of circumstances to caused them to “act in the moment”, allowing their emotions to get the better of them.