In Pennsylvania, Guards are exempt from arrest for their crimes against prisoners. I know, you figure that I'm exaggerating and, maybe I am. On very rare occasions a guard may be prosecuted, but, I've been down over 17 years and I've never seen it happen.
Although I've seen guards commit many crimes against many prisoners, right now, I only want to go into the sex crimes: staff members having sex with prisoners.
First, let me go into the boring and almost irrelevant matter of the law. God knows, Pennsylvania has no shortage of laws but many are applied only to certain groups or classes of citizens while other groups are exempt. Besides the rape law, three statutes apply to jailhouse sex.
18 PaCS 3123 relates to "involuntary deviate sexual intercourse." That means oral or anal sex. The law was invented in order to cruelly punish homosexuals. It will get you 20 years.
18 PaCS 3125 relates to "aggravated indecent assault." That means touching some naughty parts with some naughty object under some naughty circumstances. It's intent is to severely punish playing doctor and will get you 10 years. Pennsylvania doesn't tolerate any inventive or artful sex. We'll have none of that sort of stuff here, thank you!
18 PaCS 3126 relates to "indecent assault." Unlike the other laws, it's not a felony but it still carries 3 years of prison time. Let me quote part of the law: "a person who has indecent contact with another, not his spouse, or causes such [other person] to have indecent contact with him, is guilty of indecent assault if. . . (5) the other person is in custody of [the] law or detained in a hospital or other institution and the actor has supervisory or disciplinary authority over him. . ."
About once a year at each of Pennsylvania's big prisons a member of the staff is caught having sex with a prisoner. About half of the staff members are women and half men. The staff member (guard, teacher, counselor, nurse, clerk, etc.) is never prosecuted. The prisoner may be prosecuted.
The employee is allowed to resign or retire with a pension. The prisoner is always thrown into the hole. . . always! He's kept there for a long time and then transferred to another prison with orders to keep quite about the matter.
A few years ago, at the prison at Huntingdon, a male work supervisor was actually videotaped having sex with a succession of prisoner-victims. He was not prosecuted. He was allowed to resign. The prisoners were tossed into the hole for many months.
Understand that a prisoner cannot say "no." He cannot refuse to do anything he's ordered to do by any member of the staff. For "disobeying an order," he'll get at least 90 days in the hole.He can't report a guard's sexual demands. He'll get even more hole time for "lying" and for "dis-respecting staff."
By way of example, consider a case from 1995. Since the guard is one of the less oppressive ones, I'll just call him Terry F. He'd been a guard for a number of years and he supervised a work gang of about a dozen prisoners who did mopping and cleaning. He was caught, as they say, "flagrante delicto." A certain portion of his lower anatomy was crammed down the gagging throat of one of the prisoners who worked for him, a black man of slight stature.
Terry F. was not prosecuted. Oral sex should have earned him 20 years. Instead, he retired and received a pension at taxpayers' expense.
The prisoner went to the hole. He was held in solitary confinement until he maxed-out his whole sentence. Ironically, a few days after his release, he was found shot to death in Philadelphia. I don't know what connection, if any, there was between the mouthful of guard and the shooting. I do know that the prisoner-victim is now permanently silent.
The excuse used for throwing the prisoner-victim into the hole is a piece of typical prison procedure. The victim was guilty of breaking a prison rule. It's against the rules for a prisoner to have sex with anyone. If a guard slithers a yard of tool up your can, he's committed a felony and gets a pension while the prisoner has broken a rule and gets the hole.
This prison rule against sex is enforced in very different ways in different situations. If homosexual prisoners are caught at it, they get 30 days in the hole. Usually, they are both put into a cell together. The administration condones and even encourages homosexuality between prisoners because it degrades them in the eyes of the staff.
If a prisoner is detected sexually fondling a woman, even his wife, during a visit, he's treated much more harshly. Usually he gets 60 days in the hole. On top of that, he loses his visiting "privilege" for at least half a year or, perhaps, permanently. He may never be allowed to see his wife again!
In the almost 18 years that I've been down, I've heard of only a few cases of one prisoner homosexually raping another, about one every five years. There may be more but I just haven't heard about them. I don't have much dealing with aggressive homosexuals.
In rape cases both prisoners are put into the hole. Both are generally kept there for many months. If the victim relents and decides that he wasn't really raped, he gets transferred to another prison and the matter is dropped. I'm aware of only one case where a prison rape was prosecuted. In that case the rapist got a 5 to 10 year sentence and the victim was transferred with the reputation as a snitch and suffered continually in other joints.
If a female member of the staff has sex with a prisoner, the prisoner is likely to be prosecuted for rape and get 20 years. It's just too easy for the woman to protect herself, her reputation and her job by saying that she was frightened or forced, or whatever, even if the affair has been going on for months.
There have been exceptions. A few years ago a female guard at the Huntingdon prison was earning fifty bucks a pop by selling her commodious commodity. When she got busted receiving an injection of affection, the administrators were miffed that they hadn't shared in either the commodity or the profit. While the woman was not prosecuted for rape, prostitution or anything else, she did get a sound scolding and was fired. She seems to still be popular around the town.
In another instance, a female guard was simply transferred but both a nurse and a school teacher were fired. In those cases, however, the women were "in love" with the prisoners and didn't use the "I've been raped" ploy.
Of course, in all these cases, the prisoner-victims were punished with long stretches in the hole.
It's not uncommon for prison guards to force or try to force the wives and female visitors of prisoners to have sex with them. I'll shortly report on the case of a lieutenant from the Huntingdon prison and a guard from the prison at Dallas, Pennsylvania.
One of the unadvertised perks of the prison guard job is a license to rape. That may be good if you're into forcing sex on prisoners.
==30==
Return to Rape And Sex Menu.
Return to HOMEPAGE.