Victims of Crime

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1. Victims of crime within controlled populations represent specific vulnerabilities to attack. Describe prison violence, school violence, campus violence, and workplace violence, and for each, discuss the most logical approach you believe would lower victimization rates. Defend your position for each.

Your tentative outline might look something to the effect.

I. Introduction (about 1/4 - 1/2 page introducing topic; perhaps had a few statistics; purpose statement: the purpose of this paper is to...)
II. Victims of Crime: Specific Vulnerabilities
A. Prison violence
B. School violence
C. Campus violence
D. Workplace violence
III. Approach to Lower Victimization Rates (or include at the end of each of the above sections; this is approach used below)
IV. Conclusion

Let's take a closer look at some information that will help you fill in the above tentative outline. It is tentative, because sometimes as you begin to write, rearranging it might have better flow.

Victims of crime within controlled populations represent specific vulnerabilities to attack. (add some interesting statistics).

Your purpose statement might look something to the effect:

This paper describes prison violence, school violence, campus violence, and workplace violence, and provides the most logical approach you believe would lower victimization rates.

II. Victims of Crime: Specific Vulnerabilities

A. PRISON VIOLENCE

Prison Violence: Just by being an inmate makes you vulnerable to being victimized, but certain populations are more vulnerable and certain behaviors make these populations more vulnerable to be victimized.

a. Sexual and other forms of violence: Vulnerabilities are personal traits, such as: lack of awareness of the new inmate, small inmate, who are easily intimidated and taken advantage of, etc.

From one study, an inmate reports (excerpt)

As one [inmate] explained:

From my point of view, rape takes place every day. A prisoner that is engaging in sexual acts, not by force, is still a victim of rape because I know that deep inside this prisoner do not want to do the things that he is doing but he thinks that it is the only way that he can survive.(228)

In attempting to delineate some of the more common scenarios of prison sexual abuse, the following chapter describes both overtly violent forms of abuse and forms in which the violence is submerged or hidden. Key to many of the latter situations are what prisoners term "manipulation techniques" or "mind games": tricks used by predatory inmates to trap those they consider vulnerable.

In a letter to Human Rights Watch, a Florida prisoner set out a rough typology of the various forms of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse. He explained:

"Let me say I believe there are different levels or kinds of rape in prison. First, there is what I will refer to as "Bodily Force Rape" for lack of a better term. This is the kind of assault where one or more individuals attack another individual and by beating and subduing him force sex either anal or oral on him. Second there is what I'll call Rape By Threat. An example of this would be, when an individual tells a weaker individual that in order to avoid being assaulted by the individual who's speaking he must submit to his demand for sex. Third and by far the most common is what I'll call using a persons fears of his situation to convince him to submit to sex . . . . Among inmates there is a debate whether this is in fact rape at all. In my opinion it is in fact rape. Let me give you an example of what happens and you decide."

Example: A new inmate arrives. He has no funds for the things he needs such as soap, junk food, and drugs (there are a great deal of drugs in prisons). Someone befriends him and tells him if he needs anything come to him. The new arrival is some times aware, but most times not, that what he is receiving has a 100% interest rate that is compounded weekly. When the N.A. is in deep enough the "friend" will tell him he can cover some of his debt by submitting to sex. This has been the "friend's" objective from the beginning. To maneuver the N.A. into a corner where he's vulnerable. Is this rape? I think it is.(229)

To answer this prisoner's question--can apparently consensual sex be deemed rape--and, if so, under what circumstances is it rape--it is necessary to explore the peculiar dynamics of incarceration. (See full research study at ...