Coming into the Tennessee men’s prison system nearly 30 years ago, I assumed that my murder conviction would make me the most hated of my incarcerated peers. I imagined a life of solitude, persecution and ridicule. I did not yet know that prison has a social hierarchy in which one type of conviction is always at the bottom, but it isn’t murder.
In the early years of my sentence, incoming prisoners with sex-related convictions would be taken straight to protective custody (PC), i.e. solitary confinement. These days, at least in this prison system, they’re housed in general population unless they can provide credible evidence of threats made against them by other prisoners in general population, including names and dates. Of course, many are only able to do so after they’ve been beaten and raped.
South Central Correctional Facility, the CoreCivic-run private prison where I’m currently incarcerated, receives five or 10 newbies a week. When a gang selects someone with a sex-related conviction, the members essentially own access to that person and whatever they have that’s of value. No one outside that gang is permitted to physically or sexually abuse them, unless a favorable deal is cut. “Checking in” to PC voluntarily isn’t guaranteed protection either. I’ve seen gang members check themselves in just to follow someone, and punish them for trying to get away.
Before the era of contraband cell phones, gang-affiliated prisoners used to get their intel on new arrivals from staff. By the time you come off the chain bus, wearing your stiff new state-issue clothing and clutching your bag of property, they’d already know not just whether you were affiliated but also what your conviction was. And if it was a sex-related conviction, they probably knew the names and addresses of your parents, your spouse or your children.
“I can’t sleep sound. Every little noise wakes me … I just wait to get killed.”
When Robbie* began his de facto life sentence a decade ago, he stepped off the chain bus shaking. During the year he spent in county jail after being arrested on sex-related charges, he’d been kept isolated in a single-man cell while detainees and staff hissed cat calls and talked about how he better “watch his ass” when it was time to go to the Big House. One officer told him to order plenty of lotion.
His plan was to immediately request PC, and he did. He was denied, on the grounds that he had no proof anyone intended to harm him. That night, two prisoners raped him while a third watched the door. They took every piece of property he owned, from his radio to his shoes to his stamps. He spent the next four years isolated in PC, before being transferred to a different prison. Since he knew he didn’t have proof that anyone at the new facility intended to harm him either, he stepped off that chain bus with a different plan. He bought a shank and stabbed the first person who tried to take advantage of him.
“I’d rather die fighting than be isolated and alone the rest of my life,” he told Filter.
Mark*, whose conviction is also sex-related, first checked into PC after gang members assaulted him for not paying the “protection fee” they charged. The fee remained unpaid while he was in PC, but he thought he was safe. Until, in the middle of the night, an officer opened his cell door and let in someone who’d come to collect. After the other prisoner was done beating Mark, he told him to have family members send the money or he’d be back to kill him.
“Now I never feel safe,” Mark told Filter. “I can’t sleep sound. Every little noise wakes me … I just wait to get killed.”
He’s been in general population for a couple of months without incident, after a family member paid $500 for him to be left alone. He knows it won’t last.
If you’re queer and serving time for something else, it’s common to carry your sentencing papers with you, in case you need to prove it.
One of the constant moral dilemmas people face in prison is whether to sacrifice our own safety or the safety of our neighbors. Part of me is always relieved that it’s not me being victimized.
People convicted on sex-related charges are disproportionately LGBTQ+. Because LQGBTQ+ prisoners are at high risk for physical and sexual assault already, if you’re perceived as queer and serving time for something else—anything else—it’s common practice to carry around your judgment and sentence papers with you, in case you suddenly need to prove to someone why they shouldn’t hurt you.
Both Robbie and Mark are heterosexual, but they aren’t the first to naturally gravitate toward the unique queer community we’ve built at South Central, “Be the Change.” I’d say about 70 percent of our community members here have a sex-related conviction. There’s always more safety in numbers than when you’re on your own. As the late, great Will Campbell said, “We are all dirty bastards in need of the same grace.”
Sex-related convictions, like any other criminal conviction, are not a shorthand for identifying people as good or bad, but they are used that way. It’s prison’s scarlet letter. This is especially true if the conviction involved a minor, but often makes no difference. Many legislators are outspoken against long-term solitary confinement or violence in prisons. Yet you won’t find them organizing around the fact that people sent to prison for sex-related convictions spend their sentences in PC, or fighting, or being literally bought and sold. Even though everyone knows that it’s going to happen.
Names have been changed for sources’ protection
Image (cropped) via Office of Justice Programs
Show Comments