The myth of female innocence – correctional services

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (Lord Acton)

The undeserved myth of female innocence prevents it coming to light that women are as likely and even more likely than men to be amoral, especially in the area of sexual abuse.  In reality, that has been known for many years, since long before modern feminism came on the scene.  What is new now is merely that modern feminism made it politically-incorrect to acknowledge and to address the reality of the myth of female innocence not being deserved.  The following are a few observations regarding the indicated study report and a few quotes from that report, by someone who obviously read all of the 56 pages of the report:

Now get ready for my next bombshell. According to a frequently quoted report by the Justice Department on sex in prisons and jails, most of the guards having sex with their charges are women.
“Among the 39,121 male prison inmates who had been victims of staff sexual misconduct, 69% reported sexual activity with female staff,” according to the 2008-09 Bureau of Justice Statistics study.
It’s even higher in juvenile detention facilities, where 90 percent of the boys who said they were victims of sexual advances by officers said they were approached — and frequently raped — by women.
Sometimes we can make our pedestals a little too high. When women assume positions of power over the lives of others, they can become predators just like men can.
“There’s an assumption that women won’t do this, can’t do this, that it’s not in our nature,” said Brenda Smith, a law professor at American University who has written extensively about sexual assault in jails and prisons. “But it is in our nature.”
(h/t Rk Hendricks)

I recommend that you bookmark the link at the end of the following quote.  Even better, download the report and keep it on file.  Chances are that it won’t be available for very long, not if it becomes apparent that it may become too-widely known and begins to pose a danger to the myth of female innocence.

UCLA Law Review
Uncomfortable Places, Close Spaces:Female Correctional Workers’ Sexual Interactions With Men and Boys in Custody
Brenda V. Smith
Abstract
It is well known that sexual abuse occurs within the correctional system. That female correctional staff commit a significant proportion of that sexual abuse is met with discomfort bordering on disbelief. This discomfort has limited the discourse about female correctional workers who abuse men or boys under their care. Scant scholarship exists that addresses the appropriate response to sexual abuse by women; even less addresses sexual abuse by female correctional workers. Likewise, feminist jurisprudence on sexuality and desire does little to illuminate the motivations of women who engage in sexual misconduct or abuse, much less women who abuse men or boys in custodial settings. What the literature does acknowledge is that female sex offenders receive less-harsh sanctions overall than male sex offenders; they are even less likely to be prosecuted or punished when the victim is male and in custody. Additionally, although female correctional workers have access to significant power by virtue of their roles, that power may be diminished by a confluence of gender, race, and class. The literature also acknowledges that female correctional staff ’s entry into the correctional system was a great success for reformist feminists and that women have become power players within the correctional system because of their ability to supervise both women and men. Despite this status, however, women still experience sexual discrimination and harassment, both from male staff members and from male inmates. For black female correctional workers, gender discrimination is compounded by race and class discrimination.
This Article examines female-perpetrated sexual abuse in custodial settings and its place at the intersection of race, class, and gender in order to disentangle complex and overlapping narratives of abuse, sex, desire, and transgression. Ultimately, this Article confronts our discomfort with and reluctance to acknowledge the fact that women sexually abuse men and boys in custody, and it offers possible explanations for these behaviors.
56 pages
Source (The PDF file of the report identified there is 593 kB)

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See also Richard Stephens’ analysis of the myth of female innocence with respect to the fairly recent denial (but not all that long ago widely acknowledged prevalence) of the phenomenon of female serial killers.

#ChildAbuse #PropagandaExposed #WomensViolence

See also:

• Elder abuse endemic, e. g.: Yorkshire
• Female violence receives little social recognition
• Female innocence debunked, feminist myth
• Baby Farmers: Women who kill children