NCJ Number
183051
Date Published
1999
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Based upon her experiences as an unsentenced inmate (jailed for contempt of court) in the District of Columbia jail, the author critiques jail conditions and management practices.
Abstract
Based upon her jail experiences, the author believes that the correctional service system is based on the abuse of power, allowing mistreatment of both inmates and employees, particularly the sexual mistreatment of women. She further suggests that such a system may well be representative of a prevailing, widespread ethic throughout the Nation rather than specific to the D.C. jail. She concludes that the men in charge of the D.C. jail, both white and black, were educated, hardworking, and rational, but they clearly operated from the philosophy that might is right. Such power abuse leads to systematic violence, dishonesty, and sexual degradation of the most vulnerable. She validates her personal perspective in lawsuits filed by women inmates and employees of the D.C. jail. In 1993 women inmates sued the city and the jail to protest their systematic mistreatment, including unprofessional medical care and extreme sexual harassment. In December 1994, Federal Judge Green ruled that these women's constitutional rights had been violated and issued an order with 31 pages of specific remedies. This participant study found that the dominant members of the system, chiefly men, accord themselves an unspoken, unwritten right to abuse their power, mainly by using physical violence to subjugate less dominant men and by using sexual violence inflicted by themselves and the men below them to dominate women. The author argues that unfettered public access to the institution and to programs to benefit all nonviolent members are most likely to bring about changes in the power-abuse values of corrections managers. 10 notes and 12 references