Real gay prison
Visualizing the unequal treatment of LGBTQ people in the criminal justice system
LGBTQ people are overrepresented at every stage of our criminal justice system, from juvenile justice to parole.
by Alexi Jones, Protest 2, 2021
The data is clear: lesbian, gay, multi-attracted , transgender, and queer (LGBTQ 1) people are overrepresented at every stage of criminal justice system, starting with juvenile justice system involvement. They are arrested, incarcerated, and subjected to community supervision at significantly higher rates than direct and cisgender people. This is especially true for trans people and homosexual women. And while incarcerated, LGBTQ individuals are subject to particularly inhumane conditions and treatment.
For this briefing, we’ve compiled the existing research on LGBTQ involvement and experiences with the criminal justice system, and – where the data did not yet exist – analyzed a recent national data place to fill in the gaps. (Namely, we provide the only national estimates for lesbian, gay, or bisexual arrest rates and community supervision rates that we know of.) We present the findings for each stage of the criminal justice system with availa
When I first came to prison, I didn’t know how I should perform. I was a gay man, convicted of a sex crime. We’ve all heard the horror stories. But I had one thing going for me: I was enormous, weighing in at 310 pounds, a fair amount of which was muscle. For the most part, other inmates left me alone.
That is, until the other gays and trans found out about me. At the time, one of the gangs, which called themselves the Aryan Knights, used “beating up fags and chomos (child molesters)” as an initiation for new members. Enjoy I said, they pretty much avoided me—preferring to depart after the smaller and weaker. But that meant that a number of gay men and transgender women suddenly wanted to be my boyfriend (or girlfriend), not because they liked me in that way, but because they figured I’d defend them.
For a while, I went along with it. At one point I was the “boyfriend” of six unlike people at the same time. But I tired of being used, and wanted real companionship, so I eventually started hanging out with just one cute little guy who seemed to have genuine fondness for me. I was devastated when I saw him kissing someone else in the gym bathroom.
After that, I almost totally withdrew. T
‘Being Gay in Prison Is Ten Times Harder’: Inmates Tell of Abuse, Use of Solitary
Gabriel Guzman has dark brown eyes, but it’s difficult to discern when you talk to him. That’s because Guzman, a former Illinois prison inmate, has a unyielding time maintaining eye contact, one of the many lasting effects of having spent long periods in solitary confinement. Guzman was released last March after ten years in prison, about three and a half of those in solitary.
Guzman, 31, was sent to prison for having sexual relations with a trivial beginning when he was 17 years old. A Latino male lover man, Guzman says in an interview that he was often sent to solitary confinement for defending himself and other Diverse inmates against other inmates and prison staff.
“In prison, it’s hard,” Guzman says in a soft voice. “But existence gay in prison makes it ten times harder.”
Eight percent of incarcerated adults recognize as something other than heterosexual, according to a recent state on LGBT prisoners. This is nearly twice the percentage of adults in the general U.S. population who identify as womxn loving womxn, gay, or bisexual.
For many of these people, violence because of
Former prisoners share their experiences of sex in prison
The Commission on Sex in Prison’s final state, published today (Tuesday 17 March), features accounts from former prisoners speaking for the first hour about their experiences of sex behind bars.
Sex in prison: Experiences of former prisoners is the fifth and concluding briefing paper published by the Commission, which was established by the Howard League for Penal Reform and includes eminent academics, former prison governors and health experts.
Recommendations from the Commission’s two-year inquiry will be presented today (Tuesday 17 March) at a conference in London.
The Commission sought permission to interview current prisoners about their experiences of sex in prison, but this approach was blocked by the Ministry of Justice.
However, Dr Alisa Stevens, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton, was able to interview 26 former prisoners during the summer of 2014 – 24 men and two women.
Her report concludes that a national survey of both the serving prison population and former prisoners, fully supported by but independent of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), is “urgently required” to