Hilton Humiliation and the Penal System
A Posts entry from Tuesday, June 12, 2007
If one wanted to sell magazines to old people, one could simply put a picture of Paris Hilton on the cover with the words “Generation Hilton” next to her. Then include some statistics that say things like “today’s generation is crankier than ever” and “they have too much sex.” Control over generational representation seems to be gained only when the generation is almost dead– see Greatest Generation. Until then we’re likely to suffer a litany of attacks about our propensity to use computers, play hip-hop and wear white belts with that “I just don’t care” swagger. Meanwhile as the baby boomers approach their golden age, the news services are sure to tell us how great Buffalo Springfield was and that the 60s were the most important time in the history of America.
Since this will be our destiny for the next 40 or so years, let’s focus on the issue at hand: Humiliation. In the court’s effort to exact cultural revenge on one “Paris Hilton,” which I’m guessing is the taken name of a transsexual prostitute, they have placed her in a minimum security prison where she is afraid to urinate. I’m up for water-boarding Hilton as much as the next neanderthal, but why can’t a minimum security prison provide a curtain, a half wall, or a stall for inmates to use when they’re on the toilet? This seems fodder for the zany socialist liberal commie belief that prisons in this country are a system of humiliation rather than a system of rehabilitation. And while you may dismiss that statement because it rhymes, keep in mind that not only does it have some credence, but rhyming political catch-phrases have been used by def poets Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson for years.
Since so many seem to be strident about moral degradation and dehumanization for higher-eschellon criminals, for the sake of this argument we’ll just be talking about minimum security prisons. What rehabilitative value does removing a right to privacy when peeing possibly afford the inmate? Why is it an accepted cultural assumption that if you enter a prison facility you’re going to be raped and brutalized? This should be of great concern for any American human being since it’s not totally out of the realm of possibility that you’ll be serving some time in your lifetime. In fact, “If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 15 persons (6.6%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.1 There is no legitimate reason for humiliation on the toilet or an acceptance of sexual assault in prison for people who have done things like driving with a suspended license or selling marijuana.
According to a study of state prison systems…
On average, 21.2 percent of female inmates reported experiencing some form of sexual victimization by other inmates and 7.6 percent by staff. Of the women who were victimized, a little over three percent said they had been sexually assaulted by an inmate and 1.7 percent said they’d been sexually assaulted by a staff member.2
and…
Among prisons housing men, rates of victimization varied by facility. A man might be housed in a prison where the risk of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization was as low as 3.0 percent or as high as 6.4 percent. Likewise, he might be in a facility where the risk of sexual victimization by a staff person ranged from 3.7 to 11.8 percent. While the percentages of sexual victimization may seem low, they indicate that a significant number of prisoners are the victims of sexual misconduct in prisons nationwide. In 2003, 1,368,866 men were imprisoned in the United States, which translates into almost 22,000 male inmates experiencing a forced sex act. There were 101,179 women in federal and state prisons, which translates into over 3,200 experiencing a forced sex act.3
If there’s one institution in this country that is in need of reforms it is most definitely the prison system. Even if you are Paris Hilton, you deserve not to live in fear of rape and assault, and you certainly deserve some potty privacy.
Mark Elliot Cullen
mark@ivystreet.net
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