America has finally said no mas to the sexual predators among the Hollywood, media and political elite. Powerful men can no longer expect to get away with leveraging their positions over women to force them to provide sexual favors.
While sickies like Harvey Weinstein could frighten women with potential career death, the sex predators within the prison system use the possibility of actual death to terrify women into putting out.
I do not mean the inmates. I mean certain corrupt guards who tell women officers and counselors, especially new hires, that they won’t get backup when the inmates revolt if they refuse to put out. In other words, “you’ll be dead by the time we answer the code”.
Prison is a male dominant culture that offers little to no support to women officers or counselors who complain of sexual harassment.
Corporal Chastity Roop was a rare female officer who refused to play the game with the hungry male sex predators who have rank inside the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center. When they made lewd comments to her, she wrote them up. Eventually, the wolves skulked off, but never lost a chance to tell the inmates “that bitch is crazy. Something’s gonna happen to her”. That’s prison code for “if any of you guys jump her, we won’t be all that upset about it”.
Thankfully, no prisoner took the bait. But the hounds hounded Ms. Roop all the way out of the prison. They got their buddies in high positions to declare her to be emotionally unfit to work inside Vaughn. Her harassers remain gainfully employed.
Sgt. Casey Phelps has gotten away with sexual harassment for years. Because he’s tied into a clique of neo-klansmen and unofficial skinheads he thinks he’s untouchable and has said as much.
He mostly targets light complexioned Black women. One such victim of Sgt. Phelps’ full court press was Jessica Gregory. In front of prisoners and other guards in W building, Phelps grinded on her posterior, squeezed her breasts, spanked her behind and made her sit on other guards’ laps for prison lap dances. “Ain’t no fun less my homey gets some.”
He’d take her into the upstairs storage room, the downstairs bathroom, the officer’s meeting room and the inmates janitorial room, especially to celebrate a win by Phelps’ favorite team, the New England Patriots.
Once, when Phelps slapped her behind at the W unit gate, Ms. Gregory pushed him away and yelled, “I told you to stop it”. But he didn’t. She was, in his perverted mind, property.
Gregory eventually escaped the Vaughn culture of quasi molestation and went to work for the U.S. Postal Service.
New recruits are on probation for 18 months and can be fired simply because a higher-ranking officer, like Phelps, doesn’t “feel comfortable working with her” i.e., she won’t put out. So, the new recruits usually do. By the time they are off probation their self-esteem is so damaged that they succumb to being run through the predator’s gauntlet. Some even try to convince themselves that, at last, they’re “popular”.
Before Ms. Gregory, Phelps regularly victimized a female counselor Waugh whose activities with Phelps were so outrageous that a male counselor named Handcock had to intervene. Phelps responded by getting his neo-klan buddy in the Captain’s office to reassign Handcock to a different unit.
Sgt. Gill, a Black officer, became so obsessed with a young female commissary employee, Ms. Flowers, that his harassment nearly reduced her to tears. “You’re old enough to be my father” she pleaded. Why are you bothering me like this?” It took the intervention of an older woman to get Gill to back off. Gill, unable to work anywhere without causing chaos, now works in the prison mailroom where he can admire photos of inmate’s wives and memorize the pretty ones’ addresses.
Sexual harassment in Vaughn prison will continue until an independent organization such as SURJ (Stand Up for What’s Right and Just) is funded to investigate harassment allegations and advocate on behalf of female victims.
Meanwhile, Warden Dana Metzger should not hide and protect rogue predators like Phelps and Gill. If he is a leader with the qualities he is purported to have, he should fire them.