In Defense of Flogging by Peter Moskos Read Free Book Online

have sex with the protector. As bad as this sounds, it is better than being raped. The inmate has the option of “checking off,” that is asking prison staff for protection. This too carries a price. Prison officials often ask the inmate to identify, and testify against his attackers. At this point, the inmate is labeled a “snitch,” and his life is in further danger.
    In what is perhaps the most graphic depiction of prison sex to reach the American public, comedian Chris Rock popularized an account of life behind bars that was so over the top it became known as the “Tossed Salad Man.” The original (decidedly noncomedic) version appeared in an HBO documentary in which one large and charismatic gay prisoner described his modus operandi in all-too-clear terms: “First of all, if he’s a newcomer, I want him to suck my ass with jelly. That’s the slang word, tossing
salad. It means sucking my ass, right? With jelly or without jelly. Some people prefer syrup. I prefer the guy to use jelly.” According to the prisoner, the nominally straight man can at least pretend he’s licking a woman. The prisoner then attempts to reassure the viewer: “It’s clean. The person is decent.” Chris Rock declared the Tossed Salad Man a greater deterrent to crime than the death penalty. And yet although most of us would never wish this sort of experience on another human being, by allowing the prison system to continue unchecked, we effectively do just that.
    Without gang protection or a long-term committment to solitary confinement, the danger of sexual assault is ever-present. Take this account from another inmate:
    My biggest fear of being in this place isn’t, you know, getting out alive is something, too, but you don’t have to do anything to become a victim. And there’s no one man strong enough to come against a group of five or six. And if somebody gets a wild idea in their mind, that they want to do something obscene or what have it
to you, there’s nothing I can do if they catch me in the wrong spot and the wrong time.
    Faced with this predicament, some prisoners submit to semiconsensual sexual acts. Still others simply make do with whatever options are available.
    The perpetual threat of violence, sexual or otherwise, is interspersed with long periods of monotony. This account comes from an online prisoner message board:
    At the end of the day it’s the fucking boredom. I’m surprised prisons aren’t worse than what they are. You ever see what happens when you just give nothing to do to high schoolers or middle schoolers? It won’t last long, they’ll come up with something to do which will likely hurt someone or break something. Now imagine if those kids are grown men there for violent offenses. Now imagine if there was some kind of society built around this concept. BAM! Prison.
    In response to boredom and fear, many prisoners turn to drugs and alcohol to pass the time. Drugs,
smuggled in by guards and visitors alike, are readily available in prison (the inability to keep even prisons free of drugs is perhaps the best illustration of the futility of the war on drugs). One prison dealer estimated that 75 percent of prisoners get high. He put it this way:
    If it wasn’t for drugs in this prison, you’d have a lotta more violence going around. Ain’t nothin’ in here. Ain’t nothing in here. So when you got anger and frustration and prison and time, that’s going to breed violence. So now when you got a little something that is going to sedate the violence? They should be lucky guys like me is inside the penitentiary.
    If you’re stuck in prison, why wouldn’t you take drugs? What else are you going to do?
    Prisoners seek out the standard recreational drugs, particularly marijuana, alcohol, and heroin, as well as legal prescribed pharmaceuticals, which have the added benefit of being free when administered by