Prison Sex: Practice & Policy by Christer Hensley (ed.)
1969; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.18192/jpp.v17i2.5250
ISSN0838-164X
Autores Tópico(s)Sex work and related issues
ResumoC onsistent with attitudes about sex writ broadly, prison sex remains a rather private aspect of life within this total institution.Few sexual acts have been deemed worthwhile of study -research in this area has focused mostly on sexual behaviours considered deviant, dangerous and criminal.Highlighting an absence of literature on prisoners' healthy sexualities, Prison Sex: Practice & Policy pieces together the available literature on a diverse range of sexual activities occurring within American prisons and problematizes institutional policies seeking to prohibit prisoners from cultivating normative sexual desires.Recommendations are made towards future avenues for research, as well as concrete ways of addressing sexual violence and coercion, sexually transmitted infections, HIV and AIDS, which, the authors argue, arise at least in part from prohibitive policies towards sex.The book is mainly directed towards criminal justice professionals, and aims both to inform and to create awareness.Divided into ten chapters, Prison Sex introduces, in each section, a new form of sexual act or one same act from several different perspectives.Each chapter begins with a review of the literature on a particular topic and points to issues which remain unaddressed.Almost all chapters speak to gender differences in the prison experience as it relates, amongst other things, to sex, and compare experiences in male and female prisons.The first chapter contextualizes prohibitive trends towards sexual behaviours in carceral settings through a discussion of retributive attitudes, fiscal cutbacks and the proliferation of the prison industry, which has led, in turn, to a qualitative shift in the prison experience -now characterized by enhanced levels of sexual violence as well as a heightened threat of sexually transmitted infection.In discussing prisoner subculture, the author of the second chapter provides additional context, this time at the micro-level, to describe how prison hierarchy governs much of the sexual behaviour occurring inside.Chapters three to six address coercive sexual acts in prison, how staff sometimes contribute to the problem and how to respond.Significantly, this section goes beyond the simple 'community/victim -prisoner/offender' dichotomy to include prisoners as victims of sexual violence.While chapter
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