Prison is horrible.
I’ve never experienced it, but I know that from hearing stories and seeing it portrayed on different TV shows. Being incarcerated isn’t supposed to be easy or fun. It was actually created to be the complete opposite.
Imagine you’re being sentenced.
The gavel comes down and all of a sudden almost every part of your life is controlled by someone else.
You’re told when to eat.
When to sleep.
Where you can go.
But you probably don’t assume that means you have also given up your right to say no.
For women in correctional facilities, that line can become a lot more complicated.
When I started looking into sexual abuse in women’s prisons, one of the first things that got me was just how much power correctional officers have over the women they are supposed to be supervising.
And I mean a lot of power.
A Human Rights Watch investigation documented sexual assault, harassment and inappropriate touching of incarcerated women by correctional employees. It also found cases where officers used the power they had over women and their access to basic goods and privileges to pressure them into sexual acts.
Obviously, that is abuse.
But then I started thinking about the situations people might try to call “consensual.”
Can there really be consent when there is this much power involved?
Think about it.
An incarcerated woman can’t just leave an uncomfortable situation. She can’t block an officer’s number or decide she never wants to see him again.
She is literally locked inside the same institution where he works.
That completely changes what saying “yes” can mean.
And the numbers make it even harder to ignore.
According to Helping Survivors, an estimated 65% of sexual violence among incarcerated people goes unreported. Their statistics also show that 3.1% of people in state prisons report experiencing sexual victimization by either staff or another incarcerated person yearly. Of the people who reported sexual violence, 31% reported experiencing multiple incidents.
65% going unreported.
That number really stuck with me because it brings up another question.
What happens when she does report it?
Women at Tutwiler Prison for Women talked about that exact fear.
One woman in the video, Tangy James talks about hearing stories of relationships between incarcerated women and officers, assaults and retaliation. She explains that women may want to speak up, but they can also be afraid to.
And honestly, can you blame them?
Reporting sexual abuse is already scary. Now imagine the person you are reporting works in the same place where you eat, sleep and spend every single day.
Tangy James also said something that really stuck with me:
“We’ve already received our just punishment. I’m not here to be assaulted by anybody verbally or physically.”
Exactly.
Being incarcerated is the punishment. Sexual abuse isn’t, and it should never be treated like something women are expected to deal with just because they are behind bars.
Human Rights Watch also found that women who reported sexual misconduct could face retaliation. That retaliation could come from the officer they accused or even other employees at the prison. So not only does a woman have to decide whether to report what happened, she also has to think about what could happen to her afterward.
We tell women to speak up about sexual assault all the time.
Why didn’t she report it?
Why didn’t she leave?
Why didn’t she just say no?
Those questions sound a lot different when leaving isn’t an option.
Before looking into this, I knew sexual violence happened in prisons, but I never really stopped to think about what it means to experience it somewhere you physically cannot leave. I also never thought about how different consent becomes when one person has so much control over another.
Yes, these women are incarcerated because they were convicted of crimes. They are there to serve their sentences.
But sexual abuse was never part of that sentence.
Losing your freedom is the punishment.
Losing your right to say no shouldn’t be.