NSFW: Should inmates who "pleasure themselves" be labeled as sex offenders?

No. It is absurd.

Ridiculous.

But if they did it (as a means to offend) in front of someone outside of jail they shouldn’t be sex offenders either? What if they did in front of you? Your wife? Your kids? Still think they shouldn’t be labeled a sex offender?

The label “Sex offender” should only be applied to actual rapists. Any other use is ludicrous to me.

Prisons mustn’t be like I see them in movies then, if some law is being considered about inmates not being able to whack off.
I always thought a bunch of hardcore shit went on in high security prisons, and that staff should probably be expecting crude behaviors from some of the inmates. I’m sure there’s worse they can do. And yeah, I wouldn’t be happy if someone whacked off in front of my kids, but then, I wouldn’t bring my kids there…unless it was for visiting someone, in which case I don’t think you’re exposed to the inmates other than the one you’re wanting to visit. What is this law? O_o

Hey, don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone I love.
—Woody Allen (Annie Hall 1977)

Yes, label them as sex offenders and send them to prison.

So, labeling them sex offenders so that they can never get a job again, are forced to turn to a life of crime to survive on a basic level, and eventually return to prison will somehow stop this behavior in prison?

The whole sex offender registry thing is fucked up, but we really have to stop labeling minor offenses as worthy of the label.

A woman calls the police. “Officer,” she says, “I just looked out my window and noticed that the man next door is walking around naked!” The officer checks his computer to get the address and notices something strange. “Ma’am,” he says, “there don’t seem to be any houses near yours.” The woman sighs exasperatedly and says, “Well, you have to look through the telescope to see him.”

I don’t see how this is anything but an inevitable side-effect of confining people to cells in the first place. I’m not saying we should set all of the inmates free, but there are certain freedoms that even prisoners do not—and should not—lose. Masturbation is a completely normal activity, just like eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom. If inmates cannot masturbate in their cells, where else are they supposed to do it?

@SavoirFaire
They should cover all the hallways in seed and then refuse to clean up so that the camp guards are forced to walk through it.

That is idiotic.

Send them prisoners to seminary and invite them to be catholic priests. They can have the same hobbies and maybe do something useful.

In the privacy of their cells, no. Deliberately in front of guards, counselors and others, yes. It certainly shows a sign of unacceptable deviation at that point. I, personally, wish they would allow conjugal visits.

Make some prison rules regarding the behavior If you don’t want it happening in prisons. Take away TV time, or put ‘em in the hole, or whatever the hell else they do as punishment. However, labeling someone as a sex offender for touching himself in the confines of his living quarters is just stupid and illogical.

Are any of you guys reading the details??

Apparently not, @Dutchess_III. People are having their own discussions about made-up circumstances that have nothing to do with the posted linked story.

@bkcunningham @Dutchess_III
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=sqA577_IoBk#t=150s

I’m not going there. Are you going there @bkcunningham? No, I am not, Sam I Am!

I will not go there, @Dutchess_III. I will not go there if you beg of me. I will not go there with a plea. I will not go there for a fee. No fan I am of going there. No fan, I am not, going there. hee hee

Then your opinions are invalid.

I’ll validate you opinions, @Dutchess_III, if you validate mine.

I’m going to have to self-validate myself right here with everybody watching.

It’s against the law to masturbate in public. You get convicted of that and you are a sex offender. Surely if that law is fair, then it should be against the law to masturbate in front of people in their workplace.

I don’t see how masturbating in public in the prison is any different from masturbating in public outside the prison. Either it’s illegal in both places or legal in both places.

People are having their own discussions about made-up circumstances that have nothing to do with the posted linked story

Oh come on, that never happens here…

Actually, @FutureMemory, it happened once. Don’t you remember? Fluther nearly got swallowed up in a black hole and the Dalai Lama had to come save us?

I bet that it happens again…on December 21st. The Mayans predicted it.

You’re validated @bkcunningham!

@ragingloli OK, now tell us how the video differed from the written details the OP listed that would, in your opinion, invalidate our opinions.

@Dutchess_III Yes, I have read the details. Have you read the bill? I have. While the linked article says that the law would not be used against inmates who were masturbating without intent to intimidate, the measure is written in an ambiguous way. On one reading, the bill is too weak to outlaw just about any act of masturbation; on another, it could outlaw just about every act of masturbation. This is a problem.

P.S. You fell for @ragingloli‘s joke by not clicking on the link.

@wundayatta Prison isn’t “in public.” You can’t just walk in and take a tour. Also, things change when you’re being forced into a cell. It’s not like these prisoners have a private place they can go when they want to masturbate. Since I know I can’t trust people to go back and look at my previous post, I’ll just repeat that this is not an argument for setting people free. I do not support that. Still, people remain human beings even when they are in prison. We don’t starve them to death, and we can’t stop them from masturbating. I understand what the law is trying to do, but it doesn’t do it very well.

@SavoirFaire, originally you said, “I don’t see how this is anything but an inevitable side-effect of confining people to cells in the first place. I’m not saying we should set all of the inmates free, but there are certain freedoms that even prisoners do not—and should not—lose. Masturbation is a completely normal activity, just like eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom. If inmates cannot masturbate in their cells, where else are they supposed to do it?”

The proposed bill does not prohibit inmates from masturbate in their cells. Where did you get that?

How about if they masturbate with their back turned or under a blanket?

What do you find weak or ambiguous about the bill?

Section 1. (NEW) (Effective July 1, 2012) (a) A person is guilty of
2 public indecency in a correctional institution when such person is in
3 the custody of the Commissioner of Correction and confined in a
4 correctional institution and performs a lewd exposure of such person’s
5 intimate parts, or an act of masturbation, which lewd exposure or act
6 may reasonably be expected to be viewed by a reasonably identifiable
7 employee of the Department of Correction. For the purposes of this
8 subsection, “intimate parts” has the meaning provided in section 53a-
9 65 of the general statutes, and “masturbation” has the meaning
10 provided in section 53a-193 of the general statutes.

SUMMARY:
This bill creates a crime of public indecency in a correctional
institution. A prisoner commits this crime if (1) he or she performs a
lewd exposure of his or her intimate parts or masturbates and (2) the
act can reasonably be expected to be viewed by a reasonably
identifiable Department of Correction employee.

@SavoirFaire There is a huge difference between doing it in your face, and doing it under your covers. There is no call to stand in the door of your cell and jerk off. The reason they do it is that it is offensive and the only power they have is the power to offend. Of course, the state wants to take away that power, if they can.

But I think that if you stand in your doorway to jerk off, that is doing it for public display and can be considered public lewdness. The fact that they do it to intimidate female prison guards makes it worse.

Well, there seems be be a big difference in how the bill is written and how the article that @Charles posted reads. The article’s first sentence is: “Connecticut prison officials are asking for a new law that would label inmates who commit lewd acts in their cells (emphasis mine) as sex offenders.” That’s not what I get from the bill, from the excerpt @bkcunningham posted (where did you get that, BK?)

I’m pretty sure there are no cameras in the individual cells, just on the big “cell block.” In their cell would be considered private. Anywhere else should be considered “public” and have the same consequences as anyone on the outside who might walk into a meeting and whip dis out.

So, my first answer still stands.

I just thought of something…maybe the person who wrote the article thought that prisoners spend 24/7 in their cells. They don’t, unless they’ve done something to wind up in isolation. They have the freedom to roam in and out of their cells, and into the bigger cell block. The cell blocks at the jail where I work can hold 20+ people.

In addition, they are very often released into other areas of the prison for counseling, for kitchen duty, for laundry duty, and for various and sundry other reasons. In my case, some of them are released to come into my class room for education. If one of my students proceeded to masturbate in front of me, in front of my class room,then hell yeah that person should be hit with the same charge as anyone else doing the same thing on the outside!

Here, @Dutchess_III:

http://www.cga.ct.gov/2012/FC/pdf/2012SB-00367-R000425-FC.pdf

which came from: http://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/cgabillstatus/cgabillstatus.asp?selBillType=Bill&bill_num=SB00367

Thanks @bkcunningham.

@bkcunningham Is that a government website you’ve linked?

Uhhh, what did you say, @FutureMemory? I can’t hear you. There is a loud buzzing in here.

HE SAID DID YOU GET THAT FROM A GOVERNMENT WEBSITE?! :) It looks like it to me. At any rate, it’s Bill SB00367 if anyone wants to plug those numbers into Google to double check…...I SAID… :)

@Dutchess_III, umm, someone just knocked on my door asking about you. He was dressed in black and driving a van.

O shit!

@bkcunningham As I have already stated, my problem is with the way the bill is worded. I never said that the bill is intended to prohibit inmates from masturbate in their cells. I said that I find the wording to be ambiguous—not weak, the weak reading is just one possible interpretation of the ambiguity—and that a strong reading of it would have such a prohibition as a side-effect.

So what part do I find ambiguous? The part about “may reasonably be expected to be viewed by a reasonably identifiable employee of the Department of Correction.” Given how the law defines reasonable expectations of privacy, nothing that occurs in a prison counts. This is what is behind the arguments given by @wundayatta on this very thread (even if he is not coming from an explicitly legal perspective, his arguments parallel the law on this matter).

If the law is read in a weak way such that inmates are still allowed to masturbate in their cells, then the law—as currently written—will be very difficult to apply to its intended targets. The only acts that would count as prohibited would be those already prohibited under other prison rules. If the law is read in a strong way such that the intended acts are prohibited, the prohibition could easily be stretched to include all acts of masturbation performed in the cells. The only thing preventing such overreach would be the goodwill of the guards. Unfortunately, human beings do not work that way.

@wundayatta Same answer as above. The worry I am expressing is much more fine-grained.

@Dutchess_III Nothing in the bill mentions cameras or specifies areas of applicability. It applies everywhere, including the cells.

@SavoirFaire I see. That makes sense. Although, as a practical matter, I wonder how many advocates the prison population has. But it has a kind of 1984 ring to it to try to criminalize masturbation. I mean, I wouldn’t put it past anyone in the so-called justice system to use this law as a way to harass prisoners.

@wundayatta Indeed. Unfortunately, prisoners have relatively few advocates. I suppose this is unsurprising given that few people want to be seen as on the side of criminals, but criminals are still humans with basic legal rights. The guards have rights too, of course, and we need a way to protect both groups. If the acts that need to be prohibited were to be specified more precisely, I think the law could be reworded in an appropriate way.

@SavoirFaire Sorry, I snickered a little when you said the law could be reworded in an appropriate way. I was trying to imagine state senators discussing the exact precise way to talk about masturbation on the floor of the senate.

I guess I should grow up. But sometimes it’s nice to be a 12 year old boy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAvANRCgCDM

I think the bill is well written. It states:
…the act can reasonably be expected to be viewed by a reasonably identifiable Department of Correction employee

My point about the cells, and the fact that there are no cameras in the cells was to show that if a prisoner is IN his cell then he’s the one who has the right to expect reasonable privacy. Many of the newer cells are solid doors, with windows set in the top half. To see in you’d have to literally go up to the door and peer in.

@Dutchess_III First, not all prisons have that sort of door. Second, and more importantly, the US Supreme Court held in Hudson v. Palmer (1984) that prisoners have no reasonable expectation of privacy while in their cells. As long as the law is written in the language of reasonable expectations, then, my point stands. You and I using ordinary words here on Fluther might agree that a prisoner in his cell would be within reason to think he was in private. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t hold up in court (which is where it really matters as far as these prisoners are concerned).

Let me repeat myself just in case: I am in complete sympathy with the intended purpose of this law. Reading between the lines of what public officials have said, I do not think that prisoners should be allowed to get away with some of the things that seem to have been happening. That doesn’t mean that this law with this wording is the proper solution, however, and the technical legal definitions of the terms involved make this law very easy to abuse. Since we all agree that prisoners should be allowed to masturbate in their cells under normal circumstances, let’s also agree that the law shouldn’t undermine that right—even unintentionally.

I need to see the wording of Hudson v. Palmer (1984) @SavoirFaire. I just don’t seen anything wrong with the wording of the bill that @bkcunningham posted. It doesn’t disclude cells, but it does include, several times, ”...reasonable expectations that an employee might see them.”

I found it. I had a suspicion that it had to do with a search and seizure issue. I fully agree that an inmate cannot consider their cells as inviolate as a house on the outside. If there is a reason to suspect something, then they get their cells “thrown over.” And that’s as it should be, IMO. Believe me, the guards don’t do that just for the hell of it.

I still maintain that if an inmate is in his cell, and under his blankets, he is taking reasonable precautions to prevent any employees from seeing him. Notice that the bill bk posted dealt specifically with employees, not fellow inmates.

Who is to say the inmates are masturbating only in their cells? The masturbation could be taking place anywhere within the confines of the correctional institute. In the exercise yard, in classrooms…I tried to actually find cases involving inmates in Connecticut and came up with nothing. I found commentaries and news articles, but no actual cases online. Here is an example of what I’m talking about that I was looking for.

This is an example from California: In January 1996, Deanna Freitag transferred to Pelican Bay State Prison from Chuckwalla Valley State Prison, where she had been a correctional officer for several years, in order to be closer to her family.   Pelican Bay, a maximum security prison in Crescent City, California, includes a Secure Housing Unit (SHU) which incarcerates many of the state’s most violent criminals.   Inmates in the SHU are subjected to harsher and more restrictive conditions than exist at any other prison in the state system.1

On September 12, 1998, Freitag was working a relief shift in the SHU control tower when she witnessed Inmate X standing naked in the exercise yard masturbating.   Freitag opened a prison pod door and directed Inmate X, over an intercom, to return to his cell, at which point he ripped a temperature gauge off the pod wall, screamed sexually derogatory obscenities, and threatened to kill her.   Freitag was instructed by her direct supervisor not to document the incident, but she nevertheless completed a disciplinary report, or 115 Form, charging Inmate X with threatening a public official.   Freitag reported several additional incidents of inmate exhibitionist masturbation in late 1998 in documents called “chronos,” or 128 Forms, which are placed in inmates’ central files but ordinarily do not form the basis for disciplinary action.   In one instance, Freitag was working a meal shift in the SHU when an inmate ejaculated onto a tray she was clearing.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1241138.html

I found many other similar examples from other states.

This one is for you @Dutchess_III. It is a case where the inmates sued and involves the solid doors and the little peep window in the door. Oh my: In their complaint, the appellants claim that this controversy began anew when prison authorities began assigning female correctional officers to duties in the living quarters of male inmates. The appellants claim that the female officers act unprofessionally when they view nude male inmates walking around in undershorts, showering, and using the toilet. The appellants claim that the female officers flirt, seduce, solicit, and aroused them to masturbate and otherwise exhibit their genitals for the female officers’ viewing. The appellants also claim that the female officers file false disciplinary reports for obscene acts and insubordination in order to avoid reprimand when other prison authorities discover them engaged in such unprofessional activity. The appellants describe the relevant facilities in their living quarters at the Georgia State Prison. The appellants claim that the female officers file the disciplinary reports after spying on them through a one-inch crack in their cell doors, or after looking at them in the shower through a five by ten-inch window on the shower door.

5
In this complaint, the appellants also complain that the appellees have violated Policy Statement 590.1, which governs inmate discipline. The appellants claim that disciplinary officers improperly punished them with severe isolation and segregation sanctions, instead of the appropriate punishments for the moderate offenses of exposure, exhibition, and obscene actions. The appellants also claim that the female officers wrongfully charged them with insubordination, a high severity charge, instead of the proper exposure, exhibition, and obscene action offenses. Additionally, the appellants claim that the female officers’ false disciplinary reports resulted in isolation and segregation sanctions being imposed ninety-nine percent of the time, even though the disciplinary proceedings occurred without the benefit of physical evidence, witness testimony, proper notice, or the presence of the charging officer. The appellants detailed the disciplinary process at the Georgia State Prison in their motion to amend the complaint, summarizing the charges in several disciplinary reports and also describing the disposition of the matters.

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/983/983.F2d.1024.90-8924.html

@bkcunningham All of that is beside the point. 100% of male inmates masturbate, and the vast majority of them do it in “private,” in their cells. They would no more expose themselves in prison than they would on the outside. The situations you mentioned are sexual aberrations, according to our society, and should be dealt with accordingly. An inmate, standing naked in the yard and masturbating, obviously has some mental issues and should be dealt with just like any man on the outside standing naked in their yard and masturbating.

I can’t really address the second one because I don’t know the facts in the case, except to say that the guards don’t linger in the cell blocks. They go in for specific reasons, then they go out. In any case, it was stupid of the facility to assign female guards to male cell blocks. That is not standard in the penal (heh! I said ‘penal’!) system as a whole.

Any aberrant behavior of the kind you describe should be dealt with just like it would be dealt with on the outside.

@Dutchess_III I think you are failing to understand my point. I completely agree with you that an inmate who is in his cell and under his blankets is taking reasonable precautions to prevent any employees from seeing him. I also have no problem with the decision made in Hudson v. Palmer. The problem is that the latter defines reasonable expectations of privacy in a way that is not limited to search and seizure, even if that is the context in which the issue arose.

Hudson v. Palmer defines reasonable expectations in a particular way. The law we are discussing here uses the language of reasonable expectations. I have run my analysis by seven law professors now, and each one agrees with me: the law, as stated, interacts with Hudson v. Palmer in such a way that it very well could remove all rights to masturbation from prisoners (even if unintentionally). That is the problem: the potential for abuse.

A prison guard could easily ignore the spirit of the law and legally get away with it based on the current wording. If you think that shouldn’t be possible, then you should agree with me that the current wording of the law is troubling. Maybe it won’t actually be abused. We can certainly hope. Still, I tend to think that the law shouldn’t contain such dangerous loopholes, especially if they are easily closed.

But I don’t think it will work like that, @SavoirFaire. All laws are open for abuses one way or another. If they use that law to charge an inmate with indecent exposure in his cell, then they have to charge ALL of them. That just won’t happen.

@Dutchess_III The law doesn’t work like kindergarten. Guards can choose who to report, and the district attorney’s office has prosecutorial discretion. Selective enforcement is very difficult to prove, and those tempted to abuse their power know it. I’m not saying that abuse is definitely going to happen, but I just don’t trust the system as much as you do. I’d rather the law not make it easier to violate someone’s rights, intentionally or unintentionally.