Posted on 08/29/2003 8:10:05 AM PDT by Valin
When I heard that defrocked priest John Geoghan had been murdered in prison, the Goya painting at Penn State came to mind. I also thought of how we deal so differently in the various quarters of this society with what's called a "hostile environment."
At Penn State, a female professor charged that the mere presence on a classroom wall of a copy of Francisco Goya's painting "Naked Maja" constituted sexual harassment, i.e., an actionable level of discrimination and hostility. "What I am saying," she explained, "is that it's a nude picture of a woman which encourages males to make remarks about body parts." The school, aware that McDonald's gets sued by fat kids who've downed too many Double Quarter Pounders, took down the painting.
I talked with Keith DeBlasio last Wednesday. Part of his punishment for a nonviolent securities offense was being raped 30-odd times over a four-month period in the Federal Correctional Institution in Milan, Michigan. "I'm [now] HIV-positive," he explained. "I'm okay, so far. There are times when my hands give out and I can't hold a pen or a glass. I was helping my mother paint when I got out and I couldn't hold the paint brush. I just sat down and cried. At times, my legs give out, not being able to hold my weight. There are side effects from the medicine, and worry about my immune system."
DeBlasio began his jail time at the Federal Correctional Institution in Morgantown, a minimum-security facility. He says his trouble started when he reported that corrections officials were breaking the rules of the institution. "They were in charge and they were doing worse things, financially, than what I was in for. One guy was billing the institution for materials and having them delivered to his landscaping business on the outside. They ended up charging me with misconduct, a charge I was later cleared of, and transferring me to Michigan.
"I told the prison officials even before the rapes began that I felt threatened by this certain person, a leader in a gang called the Vice Lords, when he started to harass and threaten me. Instead of doing anything, they ignored the warning. They put him in the bunk above me! I couldn't stop the attacks. His gang members would stand watch. If I said anything, there'd be repercussions. I'd seen officers tip off my attacker about pending searches, etc. He was dealing drugs, and he had AIDS. In the end, I got sick, HIV positive. I'm left with something I can't get rid of."
DeBlasio, in short, got a life sentence. He explains that his assailant got off with a plea agreement and that nothing was done to the prison staff. "Basically, they have immunity, the whole system. They're not accountable, unless they're directly involved. I've seen officials stand by and watch the assaults. I've seen them wait and watch in their booths until it's over. Some of them think the person being attacked deserves it.
"With mandatory minimums, there are 16- and 17-year-old kids going into the prison system, a lot of them for nonviolent drug offenses. We're bringing in kids and they're being subjected to this. You have 17- and 19-year-old kids being traded for cigarettes. It's ridiculous to say they deserve this for what they've done. In hearings I attended at the General Assembly in Virginia, it was reported that 85 percent of Virginia's prisoners are in for nonviolent offenses. The system's doing more violence than they did."
Now an advocate for prison reform, DeBlasio told me what he remembers thinking, at night in bed, with his rapist in the bunk above. "I'm thinking, I could cut his throat, then it would be over. But it wouldn't have been. I'd have been in there for life, for murder. The biggest thing for me is that this happens so often."
The numbers aren't easy to come by. Vincent Schiraldi, president of the Justice Policy Institute and past president of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, estimates that some 175,000 inmates in the U.S. prison system are sexually assaulted each year.
Meanwhile, back at a place a bit safer, the University of Nebraska, seeking to steer clear of the justice system, ordered a graduate student to remove a photo of his bikini-clad wife from his desk because several of his more easily offended coworkers said they felt the picture was creating a "hostile environment."
Ralph R. Reiland is the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
Failed judgement 101 I see. Make trouble once your out. Inside, keep your head down.
Just a wild guess, but I think this professor probably doesn't personally have body parts worthy of any remarks. ....at least not any complimentary ones.
Note to self.....do not commit "securities offenses."
I can control 1 things. I can avoid putting myself in prison situations to the best of my ability by not committing crimes.
But if I'm falsely accused or railroaded by someone with a political ax to grind, then I'll do what I have to do.
We need, in its place:
1) Capital punishment for violent sociopaths.
2) Physical punishment for nuisance crimes and lifestyle violators.
3) Lifetime isolation in a secure but not state-run location for recidivists who don't learn from the whuppin' or don't make the cut for the gas chamber.
Prison is a brutal, upside-down universe where evil is good and good, evil. It has the unfortunate side-effect of training future criminals, both morally and physically. It harms society more than it helps. It should be abolished.
...using one of Saddam's plastic shredders. Feet first.
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