When Prison Classrooms Become Think Tanks for Sexual Oppression
Your crash course on Pimpology 101
I showed up for my first day of class and was blown away by what I heard. I was looking for the behavior modification program, but walked into Pimpology 101.
I expected to hear outdated information about the effects of drugs and violence, but instead heard about the science of manipulating women into becoming sexual ATMs.
I expected to hear statistics about crime rates, but heard statistics about the percentage of women that can be strategically broken down like cattle into complete sexual obedience.
Instead of change, I was receiving a thorough education in a philosophy that condoned borderline rape.
The passive teacher (Let’s call him Mr.P) possessed a strange desire to always be on the good sides of the inmates. This is a trait that should automatically disqualify anyone looking for a teaching position in a prison.
When one of the guys said, “Mr.P, you know women need a good slapping every now and then to keep them in line!” The teacher said, “I ain’t sayin’ they do, I ain’t sayin’ they don’t! But we all know them women is crazy!”
We’re in Texas by the way, where everyone says ain’t. But still, not only was our teacher unable to teach us about grammar, I began to realize that he wouldn’t be teaching us anything about morality either.
I sat there and took it all in since I had no other choice. The education department of the prison mandated my presence in the class.
This happens because private prisons get funding and support from other entities by formulating personalized rehabilitation plans for each individual prisoner to reduce recidivism rates (or so they say). This assures the rest of the world that the prison is going above and beyond to reform the prisoners in their custody.
It sure sounds noble doesn’t it?
In all fairness, I have to point out that the class wasn’t created to promote sexism — not in the slightest. The class was created to reform criminal habits so prisoners can get out and live fulfilling, law-abiding lives. So it was indeed integrated for a good reason.
But all classrooms are places where learning is influenced by the social dynamics in the room. People who are boastfully unwilling to learn or change have no business being in the room at all. Period.
And teachers who are unable to confidently handle the types of situations that occur in a prison classroom have no business being the teachers.
We all know about power vacuums — what happens when a person or group in power leaves that powerful space open when they are absent. Well, the prison classroom provides such a space for a teaching vacuum. If the teacher doesn’t command full control over the material discussed in the room, one of the inmates typically assumes control.
And some men have a disappointing way of engaging in mysoginistic rhetoric when they’re in a group. I guess it’s just what happens when you possess a warped sense of masculinity.
But if men have a tendency of doing it in sports bars and strip clubs, you better believe they’ll do it in prison.
So what kind of things do these misogynists' say when they’ve taken over the discussion in the classroom?
Allow me to quote verbatim. (These are these notes I took during class)
- “I don’t care how independent she thinks she is! A woman can not run her own life without a man to give her purpose. I am telling you!”
- “A woman should never be allowed to be the president. I’ll be damned.”
- “All women are hos deep down. All of them! Every last one of them! They just don’t all know it. That’s why when you show them that they secretly love to sleep around, they’ll start obeying you like they should. You just revealed to them their true nature.”
- “Yeah. I mean, it’s in their genes for f***’s sake. Women want to be treated like dogs. It’s just how they are. I ain’t saying I’ll put her on a leash and make her eat out of a dog bowl. But hey maybe if she acts out of line, you know?! Haha. First time for everything.”
- “I don’t know what it is about ‘em, but they need a little violence in their life every now and then. I don’t mean goin’ toe-to-toe with ‘em. I mean you just gotta slap ’em around to get some sense into ‘em when they be talkin’ at a million miles an hour.”
I’ll spare the other twenty minutes of dialogue that included the proper way to pimp slap and why most rape isn’t really rape…
Yeah, seriously.
But you know how a racist says that they’re not really racist? How they say their views are just reality?
Well these guys have no shame in their views because they claim they aren’t sexist views. They’re truthful views and they’re just telling it like it is.
And the teacher (poor, poor Mr.P!) didn’t seem very disturbed by the discussion. I found this to be mind-blowing. But he was too passive to reveal how he really felt about anything anyways.
Before you wonder if this is how all classes are in prison — it’s not. I’ve been in classes where the teacher only let a certain amount of nasty comments slide before she called a guard in to remove the inmate. Or, if you’re lucky, the balance of reformed inmates to unreformed isn’t such to allow this kind of a discussion to even occur.
But even great teachers have the potential to become terrible ones when the whole anti-intellectual atmosphere of prison starts wearing on them too. My friend once told me about a brilliant college professor who started teaching one of the classes, but after a few months he had given up resistance to the students. He stopped playing documentaries and halfway through class he would just put on Gangland instead.
There is evidence that indicates that behavior modification programs (when taught correctly) do help reduce recidivism. But there’s no guarantee that the teachers paid to come in and run these classes are going to effectively teach the material. A good grade school or university teacher might be the exact kind of teacher that teaches poorly in a prison setting.
We like to assume that everyone admires intelligence. Since everyone knows an education is important, we want to believe that everyone wants one. But this is a naïvely optimistic belief at its best.
I understand that the point of prison classes are to transform a person into something he wasn’t before he took the class. But the education department has to manage their classrooms sternly. Allowing self-identified career criminals to sit beside the ones that really want to get out and make something of themselves is a mistake.
Order is enforced in the court room. Order is enforced on the cell block. Order must be enforced in the one place intended to teach minds valuable information that will benefit themselves and society upon release.
We’re not talking about public school. We’re not talking about college. We’re talking about prison.
There are a lot of well-intentioned reform practices that are integrated into modern prisons. And a lot of them have reduced recidivism rates too. But if we want to keep seeing that statistic shrink, we have to be very selective about what we tolerate in the classroom.
Until then, Personal Development will always have the potential to become the Art of Grand of Theft Auto. Financial Literacy could turn into How to Get Away With Burglary. And Ethics & Moral Justice will turn into Pimpology 101.
