Sexual assaults in Texas prisons make victims out of convicts

[Joanne98]

Sexual assaults in Texas prisons make victims out of convicts

10:59 PM CDT on Friday, March 30, 2007

By Dan Lauck / 11 News
http://www.khou.com/news/state/stories/khou070330_tnt_prisonsexassault.1761d079.html

Wylie, Texas is the essence of small town, country chic – a place where Main Street has turned to antique shops and tanning salons.

It’s also a place where Marilyn Shirley watches the days pass, though chic does not describe her memories of sleeping in cars, or working three jobs, or hiding her homelessness.

But even those days were better days.

Her life in prison began the day she and her husband, Raymond, accepted a batch of methamphetamines from a customer who couldn’t pay his bill and was being tailed by the feds.

Because of that, Marilyn Shirley spent a miserable period in her life sleeping in the custody of the U.S. government inside the Carswell Federal Prison near Fort Worth.

As prisons go, Carswell looks bright and clean – almost cheerful. But on nights when prison guard Mike Miller was given the keys – and access to 325 women – it became a much darker place.

“He pulls me over and kisses me. And I shove him back and say, whoa! Whatever you’re thinking, it ain’t happening,” Shirley said.

“And he says, oh yeah, it’s happening … Turns me around and shoves me up against the wall like this … And he starts raping me… I’m begging him, begging him, and he’s hurting me so bad. I just went numb.”

Stories like Shirley’s bleed through the walls of Texas prisons every year, but hardly anyone listens.

Ricky Torres spent eight years in Texas lockups, and he, too, said sexual assault is rampant.

“Nobody will ever do anything about it. That’s just a cold, hard fact. That’s just the truth,” Torres said .
http://www.khou.com/news/state/stories/khou070330_tnt_prisonsexassault.1761d079.html

[ret5hd]

1. death, rape and torture at Carswell has been ignored for years...

It seems only the weekly alternative newspaper covers it:


read about the torture, mistreatment, and negligence at the Carswell facility here:
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=4112

and here:
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3980

and here (excellent story):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3881

and here (at bottom of page):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3792

and here (another excellent article):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=3325

and here (another excellent article):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2691

and here (about Susan McDougal's stay there):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=671

and here (seventh guard at Carswell convicted of sexual abuse)
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=1479

and here (guards and doctors sexually abuse inmates at Carswell):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2119

and here (nuns protesting "School of the Americas" sentenced to Carswell):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2211

and here (more Carswell prison rape):
http://www.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=2489

[Name removed]

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[Joanne98]

3. Wow! Thanx for that link. I didn't know about this paper..

I just posted their latest article. Got to keep on Texas during this TYC scandal...

[Jackpine Radical]

4. This is an important thread & I'm kicking it, but I wanna add something:

Almost all convicts, male or female, start out as victims. Victims of childhood physical abuse, neglect, emotional abuse, and in over half of all cases, of childhood sexual abuse.

I think I have reasonable grounds for saying this. In 13 years as a Correctional psychologist, I did psych evals of maybe 2,000 criminals. Their backgrounds were almost universally dysfunctional and abusive. And DOJ statistics will not bear me out on this, BTW. But then they do almost nothing to collect accurate data on this topic--because, I have always assumed, it is easier to demonize people if you don't know about the tragedies of their existence.

If you want to eliminate crime, eliminate child abuse.

And let me add that I am not at all suggesting that an abusive childhood is an excuse for going on to victimize others.

[Joanne98]

5. Thankyou Jackpine! I'll just add that the "war on drugs" hasn't helped

either.
:hi:

[Jackpine Radical]

6. The DEA is a price support mechanism for the drug cartels.

"The War on Drugs" was initially Nixon's excuse for destroying civil liberties. Back when we still needed excuses for that sort of thing.

[Joanne98]

7. Yepper!