I’ve talked about communities behind prison walls before on this blog. Each facility’s prisoners have their own social hierarchy and create their own economy. This place cannot function without prison workers. Everyone in the general population works full-time or goes to school. Then in the evening, people would hang out at the casino or watch a TV show or movie in the lounge.
It’s not a life – and everything is completely controlled and restricted, but prisoners do try to make the most of what they have in prison.
When it comes to the social aspects of prison life, there are many parallels to high school. There are the popular ones and the “losers,” and everything else in between. Prisons come in all shapes and forms, just like in the free world.
Another similarity to the outside world is that the social structure in prisons is based on money and power. Prisoners with lots of money (either through their own savings or deposits from family and friends) can use it to hire their own workers and bodyguards. If you’re the leader of a gang, you can make all kinds of things happen.
On the other hand, prisoners at the bottom tend to fall into three categories – informers, rapists and child molesters. Whistleblowers are hated because they can’t be trusted and they don’t think twice about talking to people (prison guards).
Rapists are not welcome because men in prison have mothers, sisters, daughters and nieces – and prisoners don’t like women being abused.
In the end, child molesters are the worst of the lowliest. And that’s what we’ll be discussing in today’s blog post – Why do prisoners especially hate child sex offenders?
In this article, I will cover the following topics:
- There Are Different Kinds of Sex Offenders
- Child Sex Offenders Are the Worst — Here’s Why
There Are Different Kinds of Sex Offenders
Before I went to prison, I thought, like most people, that all sex offenders are the same. If you go to jail for a sex crime, you must be the scum of the earth. In some cases, this assumption is entirely correct. There are some severely insane people in prison who have committed sex crimes.
But to my surprise, some people behind bars are labeled as sex offenders, which is not what you might think. Most notably, some people commit crimes at the age of 18 or 19 to have sex with a partner who is 16 or 17 years old.
It’s statutory rape, I’m not saying it’s ok by any means, but I think it’s worth clarifying that a percentage of men in prison who are labeled as sex offenders are spending time having sex with their girlfriends.
In women’s prisons, there aren’t nearly as many sex offenders in camps, but we do have a handful of people sentenced to the state’s special sex offender program. There are some people who do horrible things that I’m not going to talk about in this blog post. They deserve to be in jail. However, there is one woman, whom I will call Jane, who I don’t think should be labeled a sex offender.
Jane was 35 years old when she got divorced. Ventured into the world of dating apps, she meets a guy online whose profile says he’s 18. Sure, there’s a huge age difference, but she throws caution to the wind and decides to meet and hook up once in real life.
It turned out that the man she met was actually 17 years old, and he told his friends about it. This information was passed back to the boy’s parents, who began investigating who Jane was and sued her.
Weeks after the one-night stand, Jane was arrested and charged with rape. Now, she is a sex offender for the rest of her life. This story has haunted me for years and I will never forget it.
As for sex offenders being the worst of the world, that title belongs to child molesters.
Child Sex Offenders Are the Worst — Here’s Why
Prisoners who get timed out for sexually assaulting adults are at the bottom of the social hierarchy in prisons, but they’re not outcasts. This is not going to happen unless you are a child sex offender. The fact that most prisons segregate child sex offenders from other inmates so they can’t be harmed or killed is pretty bad.
“(Child sex offenders) are at risk of being murdered, having their food taken and their cells defecated and urinated on,” said Leslie Walker, a prisoner’s rights activist with the Massachusetts Correctional Law Association. “Their lives are hell on earth.”
Most prisoners have children or younger siblings, nieces or nephews. Also, many were sexually abused as children and never had a chance to fight back. That’s why prison inmates don’t think twice about roughing up child sex offenders.
You may think that people behind bars are morally questionable, and in some cases you’d be right. Many have committed crimes of theft, murder, drug trafficking and assault. But that’s not in the same category as “cho mo”. Even prisoners know the difference.
like they said at the beginning Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, “Sex-based crimes are considered particularly heinous,” and prisoners know this as well as prosecutors, judges and prison guards.
“Once their crimes become known, they often don’t succeed without protective custody,” Lt. Ken Lewis, corrections officer and spokesman for the Los Angeles County Jail in California, told ABC News.
“There are a lot of (pedophiles) who can succeed…as long as they don’t brag about their crimes. If they talk, they get beaten. In some places, he might even have his throat cut.”
Are you surprised that prison inmates have such moral standards when it comes to child sex offenders? Let us know in the comments below.
Sources: There Is A Reason That Child Molesters And Rapists Are At The Bottom Of The Prison Food Chain Are Child Molesters Really the Most Hated People in Prison? Prison Is 'Living Hell' for Pedophiles