Aviva Stahl @ Broadly; excerpt below:
In prison, strip and cavity searches are a routine, mandated part of everyday life, and prisoners can have no expectation of privacy when they’re showering or changing. You can be placed in contexts where you are completely at the mercy of abusive staff — like Yvette Gonzales, who was placed in “protective” solitary confinement a New York state prison, then raped repeatedly by a correctional officer. It’s an environment in which, by definition, your physical autonomy is stripped from you entirely — even consensual sex and even masturbation are punishable offenses. In that sense, the epidemic of sexual violence in prisons makes perfect sense.
The bottom line is that prisons are inextricably linked to sexual violence — and centering and lifting up all survivors will be impossible unless we humanize those behind bars. “We’re not going to stop sexual violence by continuing to criminalize people,” said Mariame Kaba of Survived & Punished. “If you’re anti-rape, you’re going to have to be anti-prison.”
