Abstract
Reviewed by: James A Roffee, Monash University, Australia
Prison sex is a topic that evokes much interest yet about which relatively little is known. This edited collection, Sex in Prison: Myths and Realities comprises 10 chapters about the occurrence, nature, and regulation of sex in prison. The book’s title is remarkably similar to Christine A. Saum and colleagues’ 1995 Prison Journal article, “Sex in Prison: Exploring the Myths and Realities.” The book’s subtitle, Myths and Realities, inadequately conveys the breadth of the issues covered by the contributions and, unlike Saum’s article, focuses less on myths and more on the contemporary issues concerning the presence of sex (both consensual and non-consensual) within the prison system.
Catherine D. Marcum opens the collection with Examining Prison Sex Culture. Underlining the structured nature of the prison environment, she identifies a number of survival techniques used by inmates and the formation of subcultures to respond to hostile prison environments. Contextualising the following chapters, it draws the reader’s attention to research on sex in prison. Marcum notes the varied nature of sex in prison, including inmates using masturbation to test whether to build and establish inappropriate relationships with staff. While generally seen as inappropriate and prohibited, Kristine Levan writes on Consensual Sex in prison, its complex structure, and its link to power. With limited recognition of the fluidity of human sexuality, the author discusses situational and dispositional homosexuality, and affords limited attention to policies and solutions for consensual sex, including the distribution of condoms.
Passionately researched and persuasively written is the contribution, Responding to Sexual Assault, by Barbara Zaitzow. She argues for a holistic approach to tackling the problem of sexual victimisation in prison settings, noting that responses need to address and alter prison subcultures, including those of unwritten rules and codes of silence, for both staff and detainees. Appropriately critical, Zaitzow details the multiplicity of barriers preventing appropriate responses to sexual assault in the prison setting, including the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act. In one sentence, Zaitzow crystallises the key issue that “stopping prisoner rape is simply an issue of better prison management” (p. 71). Through discussion of staff training, managerial approach, appropriate housing and access to education, she recognises that in responding to sexual assault we must “take a serious look at the values that inform our ideas about crime and rehabilitation” (p. 76).
Tammy L. Castle covers the rare and contentious practice of Conjugal Visitation. Setting out its historical roots in Mississippi, and its availability to only African American males due to racial stereotypes about sexuality, strength, and aggression, the chapter details its expansion to other states. Brief details are given for the five states that allow conjugal visitation in 2014 (California, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, and Washington). The chapter would benefit from expansion and greater depth, and a table allowing for comparisons across the five states would aid analysis. Very little is said of the states that once permitted such visits; reasons for change and subsequent prohibition are omitted. This undoubtedly interesting and contentious topic is worthy of greater attention.
The contribution from Ashley G. Blackburn, Shannon L. Fowler, and Janet L. Mullings on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Inmates is comprehensive and notable for its recognition of the fluidity of human sexuality and its relevance in prison settings. While much of the research on sex in prison is marked by binary characterisations of human sexuality, “either gay or straight,” this chapter is refreshing in its approach. While written by academics that are clearly committed to social change and care about those in custody, the use of some inappropriate wording and terminology remains problematic; including reducing some inmates’ attributes to a single adjective –“the Transgender inmate” – rather than employing nouns. (It should also be noted that other chapters contain wording regarding same-sex sexual activity and relationships that do not represent current, progressive nomenclature). However, this does not mar the content of the contribution, which challenges the use of sexuality-based segregation and promotes the use of segregation based on risk of victimisation.
Roberto Hugh Potter and Jeffrey Rosky provide a noteworthy chapter, Health Issues. This contribution puts into perspective the physical health risks resulting from the current failure to adequately manage sex in prisons. They call for correctional facilities to begin identifying treatable STDs and providing treatment early in a prisoner’s stay in detention, a practice not adopted in many prisons. Underlining the need for confidence in statistics about prevalence and testing, they note the patchy use of screening and surveillance and the unknown burden of STDs and blood-borne infections within those incarcerated. Importantly, they underline that re-entry of prisoners into the general population after serving their sentence poses a risk of infection if not tackled during incarceration. They propose exit testing to allow for an understanding of the healthcare burden leaving the detention system. The contribution speaks to the larger issues of incarceration, viewing the need to tackle sex in prison as requiring a reassessment of the question, “do we rely on our deterrence-rules-based disciplinary regimes to keep the rates of disease transmission (and violence-related injuries) relatively low? (p. 127)”
Although most of the book focuses on the US prison experience, Tomer Enait authors a chapter, International Contexts. The chapter emphasizes the challenge for researchers to find ways to produce valid, reliable, and comparable research on sex within prisons. This extends beyond same-sex sexual activity to all sexual acts within prison settings. Enait details some interesting findings on rape in prison in Israel, where he found that offenders committing rape and sexual assault in prison are seen as contemptible, and mentally and physically weak individuals. As such, they are socially isolated, stigmatized, and given humiliating labels. Other research from Australia, the UK, France, Germany, Hungary, South Africa, Pakistan, and Iran is discussed. This comparative chapter provides a welcome contrast to literature describing the severity of the situation in the United States. The latter is provided throughout a number of the chapters and is the focus of Danielle McDonald and Alexis Miller’s contribution. They detail changes in media perceptions and reporting of sexual assault within prison following the passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003. They find that the media is now much less likely to portray sex between staff and inmates as consensual or as the result of a bribe, and instead focus on the non-consensual nature of the conduct. The contribution emphasises the importance of education and role of the public in holding prison officials to account for the conditions in detention.
Other contributions include a concluding chapter by the editors, and a data-heavy review of the “three eras” of research on sexual victimisation in prison by Richard Tewksbury and David P. Connor. The chapter illustrates first-hand the problem with the multiplicity of research on sex in prison, and while the body of literature is growing, useful comparisons are not easily achieved.
The chapters are individually interesting and collectively provide a ready source of information about sex in prison. However, it may have been more beneficial for the collection to adopt a focus on a specific larger question, for example “what is the impact of failing to respond to sex in prison?” If anything, the book underscores that while the US has long been taking steps to address criminal behaviour (including illegal behaviour in the form of sexual violence in prison), it has a long way to go before we can have confidence in its ability to ensure the fair and humane treatment of those in detention.