First, there is what I will refer to as "Bodily Force Rape" for lack of a better term.
Let me say I believe there are different levels or kinds of rape in prison. In a letter to Human Rights Watch, a Florida prisoner set out a rough typology of the various forms of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse. Key to many of the latter situations are what prisoners term "manipulation techniques" or "mind games": tricks used by predatory inmates to trap those they consider vulnerable. In attempting to delineate some of the more common scenarios of prison sexual abuse, the following chapter describes both overtly violent forms of abuse and forms in which the violence is submerged or hidden. A prisoner that is engaging in sexual acts, not by force, is still a victim of rape because I know that deep inside this prisoner do not want to do the things that he is doing but he thinks that it is the only way that he can survive. As one explained:įrom my point of view, rape takes place every day. Prisoners, including those who had been forcibly raped, all agree that the threat of violence, or even just the implicit threat of violence, is a more common factor in sexual abuse than is actual violence. Although Human Rights Watch received many reports of forcible sexual attacks, we also heard numerous accounts of abuse based on more subtle forms of coercion and intimidation. These coercive forms of sexual abuse are much more common than violent gang rapes and, for prison authorities, much easier to ignore. But they have nonetheless engaged in sexual acts against their will, believing that they had no choice. They may have never been explicitly threatened. Many victims of prison rape have never had a knife to their throat. Yet overtly violent rapes are only the most visible and dramatic form of sexual abuse behind bars. Gang assaults are not uncommon, and victims may be left beaten, bloody and, in the most extreme cases, dead. Rape in prison can be almost unimaginably vicious and brutal. The basic scenario is not inaccurate, Human Rights Watch has found it occurs in prisons around the country. This is what people outside of prison tend to picture when they think of prisoner-on-prisoner rape. "Don't make a sound or you're dead," they warn him.
Prisons - Rape ScenariosĪ gang of inmates violently attacks a lone prisoner in the shower, sticking a knife to his throat and ripping his clothes off.