It was hard coming up with a title for this. I just read on the news the following scenario:
female correction officer charged with rape after having sex with male inmate and allegedly providing him with drugs. She feels she was "played a fool" and because inmates in that correctional center do not have the right to consent, it is thereby rape.
Yes, under that law/rule, it is rape because there is no consent from the inmate and there is the "power" issue. The correctional officer is the person in power just like elders, teachers and employers.
What hit me first though, as I read this was not the obvious here, but I thought about how we are rehabilitating our inmates and what is happening in our prison system.
More and more, prisons are becoming "for profit" centers. I question how much "supervision" and "education" is being provided to the correction officers.
In any setting where the "staff" is supervising or tending to people without "consent" it is very easy for the boundaries to be blurred. Before we chastise the correction officer as has become common in social media , let's think about all the hours they put in to their jobs, locked in with these inmates. With familiarization and time together, life in prison becomes normal for both the inmate and the correction officer and it is the responsibility of the supervisors and managers to be on the look out for friendships and possible romantic relationships. Perhaps moving staff around so they don't spend too much time in one unit may be helpful.
Yes, this takes time, dedication and money. As in health care, this is not an industry that can be made for profit. The consequences to society as a whole are immense. No one is helped when mutually emotionally abusive relationships are occurring in prisons between the correction officers and the inmates. This is all defeating the process of "correction" and highlighting the dysfunction.
It concerns me that jails and prisons are run "for profit" because the little expenses that may lower the profit, if not made, defeat the whole correctional process.
