GOLDENICE Posted July 11, 2014 Posted July 11, 2014 I worked for years in both women's and men's prisons as a teacher. For the most part civilians are viewed as prey. Your befriended for what you can give them be it drugs, money food, etc. Often the men tried to get personal information to then use against you with threats. I know you live and know people on the outside. They threaten and demand something in return. Women tended to try and use sex by offering tricks. Often trying to get you to say something and have it on tape to use against you. I won't ramble on but it was an interesting experience.
Demosthenes_ Posted July 11, 2014 Posted July 11, 2014 It is an interesting difference but in either case both genders do use coercion to get what they want. However I know they are treated differently by the guards. When my mother was in jail, they would often have 1 guard watching over 25 female inmates in the visiting room, which was noted to be too many guards. When the jail was used for men they had 1 guard for every 10 inmates in the visiting room, and they felt that wasn't enough. The reason the 1:10 wasn't enough guards was there would often be fights between family members or other inmates. With the women, the worst thing that would happen is an inmate or visitor would put their hands in their lap, possibly trying to smuggle something. Despite the difference, both of which used their own methods to get what they wanted. On one such case, a visitor (family member) was punched and tackled by the male inmate they were visiting for a reason I was not told. In my personal experience there was a female inmate who attempted to seduce 16 year old me into getting things for her and she would return the favor when she got out. Among the other inmates, I was told that a lot of the female inmates used guards as their weapon, such as spreading rumors so rooms would be searched and humiliating body searches on the spot. Regardless of the differences, I feel it is not a gender difference in the level of violence. The women or men would be just as willing to get what they wanted and had no problem hurting someone. The difference was the method on how they got it. The guards felt the female's methods were less harmful, but with the level of drug smuggling in the jail and the guards general passivity to females, I feel female inmates have the advantage in jail.
GOLDENICE Posted July 11, 2014 Author Posted July 11, 2014 The ultimate goal of many of the inmates was the same - personal gain. The gender difference was how they approached the task. Of course it's a generalization and oversimplification but an interesting learning experience for a young person recently out of college. I was relatively easy prey at first particularly from the so called 'white collar criminals". One man was quite charming and articulate with an Ivy League education. I let my guard down for a second and found myself in a potentially very dangerous situation. It was also challenging not to be intimidated by large well muscled men who gained stature within the prison population using violence. I had to hide my fear maintain eye contact and have structure in the classroom. Respect had to be earned or it was chaos. In a sense it was their world. I got to go home at the end of the day. However if I met him outside of the prison gates I would run for my life...
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