The super-rich bad seeds are delicate too
by digby
Following up on David’s post below I just wanted to add that coming on the heels of that notorious “affluenza” case in Texas, this shocking sentence from Delaware really illustrates the class and race disparities in our justice system, but that’s not the only problem. It’s actually true that pampered rich people probably don’t “fare well” in prison. Neither do hardened poor people. That’s because our prison system is a disgrace. Of course, the fact that a judge can only see the horror of it when he or she is confronted with a wealthy, white criminal pretty much says it all. (Imagine what it must be like for this poor fellow in jail. Or any of the tens of thousands of mentally ill we are now housing in our depraved prison system.)
In case it’s not clear, I’m not saying society shouldn’t be protected from child molesters. Of course it should. But unless a child molester is literally sentenced to death. rape or maiming by fellow inmates, our prisons should not be governed by the law of the jungle and prisoners should not be in physical danger within their walls. And that goes for all of them, even the horrible criminals. No civilized nation should be imprisoning so many people and then housing them in inhuman hellholes.
In 1991, I was sentenced to six years in prison on a probation violation. I was originally convicted of forging a check to buy crack cocaine. When I went to prison, I was young, skinny, and bisexual. I was scared to death.
As soon as I got there, inmates started acting like they were my fi-iends so they could take advantage of me. They jumped on me and beat me. Within two weeks, I was raped at knifepoint.
Being raped at knifepoint was the worst thing I could ever imagine. The physical pain was devastating. But the emotional pain was even worse.
I reported the rape, and was sent into protective custody. But I wasn’t safe there either. They put all kinds of people in protective custody, including sexual predators. I was put in a cell with a rapist who had full-blown AIDS. Within two days, he forced me to give him oral sex and anally raped me. I yelled for the guard, but no one came to help me. I finally had to flood the cell to get a guard to come.
Because I was raped, I got labeled as a “faggot.” Everywhere I walked, everyone looked at me like I was a target. It opened the door for a lot of other predators. Even the administrators thought it was okay for a “faggot” to be raped. They said, ‘Oh, you must like it.’ No one wants to be raped. No one likes being violently attacked.
I documented the abuse, I filed grievances, I followed all of the procedures to report what was happening to me, but no one cared. They just moved me fi-om cell to cell. This went on for nine months. I went through nine months of torture – nine months of hell – that could have been avoided.
In August, I started bleeding really bad from the rectum. I didn’t want to go to the infirmary, because I was still so ashamed about what had happened to me, but I had to. They gave me a test, and that’s when I got the devastating news. I was HIV-positive. I felt suicidal. I felt like my world had come to an end. I cried and cried. I felt ashamed, embarrassed, degraded, and humiliated. I haven’t forgotten those feelings. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about this.
I agree that the rich child molester should not be forced to go into a prison like that and be assaulted, perhaps killed. But that’s only because I don’t think anybody should be assaulted and killed in prison.
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