During my “induction” into prison, in the first fifteen minutes of being read the many, many rules, I was told emphatically that I was not to have sex with any fellow “prisoners”

CW: carceral and sexual violence

What I wasn’t warned about was how predatory officers were to us women inside. For the almost two years I was inside I watched officers prey on women and exploit their need and hunger for affection, care and humanity.

Officers traded all kinds of things for sex or physical contact: drugs, tobacco, privileges, leniency, extra food.

There was also the officer/prisoner “relationships” that existed on the promise of something physical in the future, completely transactional relationships based on the earning of perks and privileges...

These were simple encounters: little love letters, extra special attention, knowing looks, brush of the hand, flirting, exhibitionism: connections that mimicked warmth or even love

And while I saw predation I saw what some of the women would describe as consensual relations. But god, they were anything but consensual.

These officers were our captors; I mean they literally locked us in cages. They had complete authority over us and abused that power and took advantage of women who were vulnerable by virtue of our imprisonment.

And the thing is, officers are extremely adept at being able to identify particularly vulnerable prisoners. After subtly feeling out a target, they groomed them and were often relentless in their pursuit of them.

As for the women, they would often speak highly of their abuser: how nice they are, how loving, how kind. They would identify with their captor and defend them. And it constantly perplexed me....

It seemed so tragic to me that a woman was being tricked into seeing a lack of abuse from their captor as an act of humanity. But I guess they just created sweet narratives to survive. Really it’s a form of Stockholm syndrome, or capture bonding, surely.

Then I think of how the system calls officers having these type of relations with “prisoners” corrupt, rather than what it is: sexual predation, rape, sexual assault, gross abuse of power/position/authority

All of this is another reason why we have to abolish prisons. Prisons are sites of power and abuse, and what we know about absolute power is that it corrupts absolutely.

Prisons are breeding grounds for predatory and abusive people who get into these positions of authority and perpetrate violence onto a captive group of people...and yet, we, the "prisoners" are the crims?