Indecent Exposure In Jail
Is it just me, or is there something pointlessly cruel about locking someone in a transparent cage and then punishing them for failing to maintain their privacy while they jerk off? I’m having a difficult time reconciling this with any concept of justice:
A Broward prisoner accused of committing a sex act while he was alone in his jail cell was found guilty Tuesday of indecent exposure.
Terry Lee Alexander, 20, unsuccessfully fought the charge, which had been brought by a female Broward Sheriff’s Office detention deputy who saw him perform the sex act in his cell in November.
In reaching the guilty verdict, jurors found that an inmate’s jail cell is ”a limited access public place” where exposing oneself is against the law.
The judge sentenced Alexander, of Lauderdale Lakes, to 60 days in jail, on top of the 10-year sentence he is currently serving for armed robbery.
The sole witness in the case, BSO Deputy Coryus Veal, testified that Alexander did not try to hide what he was doing as most prisoners do. Veal saw him perform the act while she was working in a glass-enclosed master control room, 100 feetfrom Alexander’s cell. There was no video tape or other witnesses.
Alexander’s attorney argued that the prison cell was a private place and that what Alexander was doing was perfectly normal.
”Did other inmates start masturbating because of Mr. Alexander?” McHugh asked Veal. “Did you call a SWAT team?”
”I wish I had,” Veal answered.
Veal, who has charged seven other inmates with the same offense, insisted that she was not against the act itself — just the fact that Alexander was so blatant about it. Most inmates, she testified, do it in bed, under the blankets.
Veal said this was the third time she caught Alexander, and she had had enough.
Via Boing Boing.
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…third time’s the charm they always say…
(Re: “Veal said this was the third time she caught Alexander, and she had had ENOUGH.”)
I mean sure, she’s satisfied NOW… but give her a little while longer and she’ll soon be craving another encore performance.
There was a time that “naturists” or “nudists” could legally wander around in their own HOMES naked, without having to pull the drapes, sunbathe in their birthday suits, and even mow their lawns in the nude, as long as they stayed on their own property. But in most areas, those days are gone. Society is becoming more complacent with government intrusion into their private lives (such as the seat-belt laws).
The jury may have decided his cell was “a limited access public place”, but I’ll bet the warden insists it will remain his HOME, until after his sentence is up. Is he required to urinate and defecate under the sheets as well? Most cells don’t provide partitions or separate rooms for the toilet. If her job requires her to monitor the inmates, then perhaps it’s time she chose another profession. I’d say she’s sadistically getting off on her little power trip, trying to control what little sex life this poor fellow has. In my opinion, by not taking action the first time, she’s essentially set up a sort of “contract” with the inmate. There’s an area of precedence in the law which would actually call it an “agreement” between the two after that point. To my mind, there’s also a similarity to the way the law considers consensual sex between a man and his wife, after one of them has committed adultery, as “forgiveness” on the part of the wronged spouse, which cannot be later used as grounds for divorce.
Ostensibly, she was protected from him by both his bars and her “glass” (I’m sure unbreakable) enclosed room, so it’s not like his exposure was a de facto threat to her person. Without a person of reason perceiving it as a personal danger or precursor to a sexual attack, I’d say the jury erred.
A polite lady, would merely have averted her eyes…
When spanking it is illegal, only criminals will spank it!
How revolting. That is horrific and sadistic (and not the fun kind of sadistic with paddles, the banal kind of sadistic that comes with a uniform). Good lord, what in the world can even be done to prevent or stop that sort of thing?
This is part of the reason that I think I would generally prefer to go on the run and die running than become part of the prison system if I was ever accused of a crime I knew I didn’t commit that I knew I couldn’t fight.
I definitely agree–if they don’t give the prisoners privacy then they can’t expect them to keep private acts hidden.
I understand why they don’t get privacy but that means there should be no prosecutions for nudity or indecent acts in their cells.
Part of me thinks that this seems like a particularly sadistic guard(along with what appears to be the rest of the corrections office), who believes that she can regulate the inmates sexual impulses. But I’m very curious about this:
[quote]Veal, who has charged seven other inmates with the same offense[/quote]
I’m curious if she is attempting to be thought police, or if because she is a female guard, if they have been standing there watching her as they masturbate. The latter could be construed as a fairly predatory behavior, and if it was happening to me on a regular basis, I might consider doing something about it as well.
While I may not consider someone watching me while they masturbate to be terribly menacing under normal circumstances; add in the aggressive climate of a jail, and a continued trend, and she may have felt genuinely threatened.
I would contend that it is hard to tell what the actual situation was in this case, without more information.
Ego, I take your point, but I don’t see how any behavior from inside a locked cell can be construed as predatory. And I have no sympathy for anyone who would take a job that involves power over others (complete with uniform, badge, handcuffs, batons, tasers, tear gas, riot guns, radios, and unlimited armed backup) who then chooses to “feel genuinely threatened”.
No matter how I’m looking at this, I can’t see it as anything but a metaphorical kicking in the nads of somebody you’ve already got face-down in the mud.
Are you serious? Are you not aware of what inmates can produce in the way of weapons and contraband in the privacy of their cells while incarcerated? Not to mention gang leaders controlling the actions of their underlings on both the inside and outside. Don’t forget that even with their “uniform, badge, handcuffs, batons, tasers, tear gas, riot guns, radios, and unlimited armed backup”, staff are normally outnumbered 100 to 1, and staff inside some maximum security facilities are often unarmed. Inmates are a real and constant danger both to other inmates as well a staff. They are not so “face down in the mud” as you think. Any sort of correctional institution is no place for a squeamish guard. An inmate jerking off in his cell is the least of what she can expect to see.
Yes, I am serious.
This guy was jerking off, not making a shiv or arranging a gang slaying. For a person in a position of supreme power over him to feel “threatened” by his activity would be utterly ridiculous.
Well, I’m sure there is a great deal of background information that would help in deciding whether this is just a guy down on his luck being punished for jacking off, a malicious masturbator psychologically raping his female captor or anything in between but judging by what the article says I’m thinking it was more the former. Unless of course he was standing at the bars looking straight at her and going at it. There’s a line in the article about the prison wanting to curb similar behavior in other inmates. I’m not sure if that means they want to inmates to be ashamed of it and hide it or just stop masturbating all together. Either way those both seem to be very…”Fundamentalist” ideas. “Don’t masturbate and be ashamed of it if you ever do!”
I worked in corrections. For those of you boo-hooing over the poor plight of the masturbating prisoner– you don’t know what it’s like until you’ve been the source of their fantasy. I had many a juvenile jerk off while calling my name. Some did it discreetly–others were blatant. If this guy has repeatedly been masturbating in front of the guard (and I guarantee that his lack of discretion was in no way unintentional), she’s well within her rights to go after him for sexual harassment. She works in the legal system. He lives in it. Taking him to court is the only way he’s going to get it through his head that his behavior is inappropriate.
Cest, I’ll start by averring that nobody here is “boo-hooing”. Such derisive characterizations of other people’s arguments bring you perilously close to the level of incivility that gets comments moderated here at ErosBlog, so please be a bit less condescending in future.
Nobody doubts that prisoners do what you describe. Indeed, the August ’07 Harper’s Magazine excerpts a list of prisoner slang that includes the word “gunner”, defined as “a prisoner who masturbates while looking at a female corrections officer.”
I also cannot dispute that she’s within her (legal) rights to go after him. My criticism is for the framework of laws and policies making that possible. He’s powerless and helpless, and kept that way at great expense and difficulty. His actions, although offensive, are harmless. I’m not convinced that sexual harassment is theoretically possible when inflicted by someone without power, since I’m not sure there can be harassment without threat. Nor am I convinced that the concept of a right to avoid a “hostile work environment” makes much sense in a prison, which is pretty much gonna be that no matter what you do, and she knew the job was unpleasant when she took it.
I apologize; I didn’t read your comment policy before remarking on this post.
After reading the details of the case more closely, I have to agree that it does sound like this particular guard is abusing her authority. The fact that she’s brought similar charges on seven separate occasions and was secluded in an observation room dissuades my initial empathy for her situation.
I will contest the notion that prisoners or detainees are “harmless” or “powerless”. In my experience (and especially for female employees who are often disregarded by co-workers and inmates alike), the detainees often have equal or more power than the staff. In this case, it was my mistaken understanding that Veal was in close proximity with Alexander, and was specifically targeting her in an attempt to assert a “predator/victim” dynamic. If that were the case, my initial criticisms would stand. However, since it does not appear she was being groomed or targeted, I can’t reasonably argue on her behalf.
Sorry for the conclusion jumping, and thanks for the comment clarification. Serves me right for reading blogs before dawn–
Bacchus, female corrections employees ARE at risk of being raped by male inmates. *That* is how having an inmate jerk off while standing there looking at her (although we don’t know if that’s what went on) could be threatening.
Another thought. If an inmate is jerking off while standing there and looking at a corrections officer, that’s a pretty good indicator to me that he’s getting off on the fact that she’s witnessing it.
By the terms of her job and her duties, she doesn’t have a lot of choice about being in a position where she has to watch him doing it. Therefore, he’s getting off by exposing her to a sex act she presumably doesn’t want to be exposed to and hasn’t consented to.
It’s not a whole lot different from a customer groping a waitress as she goes about her job, or saying dirty things to her and getting off on it.
Krista, the scenario you are discussing is not the scenario this post is about. “Veal saw him perform the act while she was working in a glass-enclosed master control room, 100 feet from Alexander’s cell.”
I also thought I had made it clear by now that I simply have no patience for the idea that corrections officers, of any gender, deserve our sympathy if they should feel threatened by any non-violent behavior by inmates. She’s at risk of being raped? Not if she does her job competently, and not if her fellow officers do theirs competently. The entire power equation is stacked so thoroughly against the inmates that for corrections officers to admit to feeling threatened is, or ought to be, akin to an admission that they are unfit for the job.
You say she “doesn’t have a lot of choice” and “hasn’t consented” to seeing that. I’m saying, she made that choice when she took the job. Your position is about as sensible as a Mormon cop complaining because his job puts him in contact with drunk people.
If you make a person shit and shower subject to the full view of corrections officers and other inmates, and even lift his penis on command, it’s simply unreasonable to expect him not to touch his penis except in the privacy he doesn’t have. That’s all I’m saying.
Well, not quite all. I’m also saying it’s unjust and inhumane. Piling on. Schoolyard bullying. Contemptible. Hypocritical. Lame. Weak. Like that.