Aug 19, 2008 6:50 PM Subject: Rape in jail

I was a sergeant in one of the worse county prisons in the country. I worked in Holmesburg Prison in Philly and unfortunately, rape and abuse are part of jail life. in my experience and expertise after working in this cess-pool of humanity I will tell you what the main reasons are that rape occurs in prisons. 1st: I've seen administrations change, from conservative administrations that assure that their officers and staff keep constant vigil on what the inmates are doing and where they are at all times. If the rules are to patrol a cell block every 1/2 hour, the block officers should patrol between 5, 15, 20 minutes every hour, staggering the times so the block population cannot possibly know when he is being watched by the officers. To me, if I am working an 8 hour shift, why not make extra patrols, knowing that my presence will be a deterrent to a scum bag that will force another man to have sex without it being consensual. 2nd:When the administration is liberal, and give out rubbers, but want an officer to write-up inmates that are having consensual sex, the administration is sending mixed messages to the inmates. I believe that they are encouraging perverted inmates to have sex whatever way that they want to, even by force. The crux of my message is let the officers and their superiors run the prison and if an inmate is a "Beef Rustler" and is caught, he should be rushed to the concrete by the officers and spend a few weeks in the hospital to ponder what a horendous thing he did to a fellow inmate, then he should be charged with rape not internally by the Wardens, social workers, etc., but in court with new charges. I saw my share of inmates that were raped and most of the times, it occurred in blocks where the guards were lazy pieces of **** that shouldn't even be security officers in a Wall Mart. Before being promoted to sergeant, I can proudly say that no inmate was ever raped on my post because I took the extra steps of knowing what is going on inmy post at all times, even though I had to work a little harder than what the rules required. By the way, my career ended in a 1989 riot when I was shanked in the heart with a honed down bucket handle and my arm was broken because I blocked it before it cracked one of my guards skulls. The liberal didn't like my way of keeping peace through violence when it was necessary, but the inmates respected me, knowing that I wasn't a slouch and I wouldn't allow my guards to be anything but the best. The slouches were assured that they would be fired by me, so my techniques worked along with my work ethics.