Gay prison real
Former prisoners share their experiences of sex in prison
The Commission on Sex in Prison’s final notify, published today (Tuesday 17 March), features accounts from former prisoners speaking for the first age about their experiences of sex behind bars.
Sex in prison: Experiences of former prisoners is the fifth and terminal briefing paper published by the Commission, which was established by the Howard League for Penal Reform and includes eminent academics, former prison governors and health experts.
Recommendations from the Commission’s two-year inquiry will be presented today (Tuesday 17 March) at a conference in London.
The Commission sought permission to interview current prisoners about their experiences of sex in prison, but this approach was blocked by the Ministry of Justice.
However, Dr Alisa Stevens, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton, was able to interview 26 former prisoners during the summer of 2014 – 24 men and two women.
Her report concludes that a national survey of both the serving prison population and former prisoners, fully supported by but independent of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), is “urgently required” to
When I first came to prison, I didn’t know how I should behave . I was a gay man, convicted of a sex crime. We’ve all heard the horror stories. But I had one thing going for me: I was enormous, weighing in at 310 pounds, a fair amount of which was muscle. For the most part, other inmates left me alone.
That is, until the other gays and trans found out about me. At the time, one of the gangs, which called themselves the Aryan Knights, used “beating up fags and chomos (child molesters)” as an initiation for new members. Enjoy I said, they pretty much avoided me—preferring to travel after the smaller and weaker. But that meant that a number of gay men and transgender women suddenly wanted to be my boyfriend (or girlfriend), not because they liked me in that way, but because they figured I’d shield them.
For a while, I went along with it. At one point I was the “boyfriend” of six distinct people at the same time. But I tired of being used, and wanted real companionship, so I eventually started hanging out with just one cute little guy who seemed to have genuine care for me. I was devastated when I saw him kissing someone else in the gym bathroom.
After that, I almost totally withdrew. T
This article was published in collaboration with Vice.
“Hey slut!” he yelled at me, laughing with his confidant. “What? You know you’re a slut!”
I stopped and turned to face the two corrections officers who were pointing at me. I smiled and waved before proceeding to amble into the dining hall.
I put up with this type of behavior from the Michigan Department of Corrections staff constantly. It’s something I expected from other prisoners, but the harassment from the officers is actually much more severe.
In the past, I might have reacted in anger, but that’s exactly what they’re looking for. Outbursts will only demolish my chance of getting parole.
Back when I was locked in a double-bunk cell in level-four security at Chippewa Correctional Facility, a young gang member moved in with me. When he entered the room, he informed me that the officers had said to him, “Your bunkie’s a freak! He’s down for whatever!” They had laughed at him in front of the other inmates.
So he told me, “I’m not locking with no fag. You have to tell them to move ya or I’m going to thrash your ass.”
When the doors opened, I told an officer what my cellmate had said, leaving out the fact that he threatene
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Information and data on the mass criminalization and incarceration of Homosexual people
On this page, the Prison Policy Initiative has curated all of the research about LGBT+ issues in the criminal justice system that we know of. You can also see a selection of our best authentic research on this topic on our Women and gender page. For research on other criminal justice topics, see our Explore Library homepage.
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