LogFAQs > #955710496

streamofthesky posted...

Only when it's a male in power and a female victim.

That's pretty much how society seems to see it, although there's a natural gender dynamic involved.

Lokarin posted...

umm, that counts as rape ... there's too much of a power dynamic between a guard and an inmate

Every power imbalance doesn't necessarily mean the weaker person was abused, but obviously there's a pretty substantial issue with a guard doing that and, as a public servant, they probably should go further than just firing them. The real issue is that there probably should be mechanisms in place to facilitate a relationship if one develops, such as disclosing the relationship, not assigning the guard to have anything to do with that inmate, and limiting their interactions to the same things a normal visitor would have.

The broader issue is that you probably shouldn't mix genders in prisons just like you don't have co-ed prisons, but that would likely be unconstitutional. As it is, you're going to have prisoners who are more interested in *anybody* of the other gender (in the case of heteros) simply because they don't get much interaction with the other gender and many of them will be overly flirtatious with guards, as we've seen. And while a guard's job is *supposed* to be turning shit like that down, a lot of them aren't used to the attention and are susceptible to it. Ultimately guards are giving into a form of corruption which needs to be punished unless there's a system in place to accommodate that relationship without compromising the safety of guards or prisoners. And honestly, inmates are people. The idea that an inmate and guard can't fall in love is ridiculous. However, for pragmatic and ethical reasons, there really needs to be some way to make sure that guards aren't coercing relationships, that inmates aren't using guards to get illegal favors, etc.

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There are precious few at ease / With moral ambiguities / So we act as though they don't exist.