Catherine D Marcum and Tammy L Castle (Eds), Sex in prison: Myths and realities
| Author | James A Roffee |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0004865816642840 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Australian & New Zealand
Journal of Criminology
2016, Vol. 49(4) 600–604
!The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0004865816642840
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Book Reviews
Catherine D Marcum and Tammy L Castle (Eds), Sex in prison: Myths and realities. Lynne Rienner
Publishers: Boulder, CO, 2014; 191 pp. ISBN 978-1-62637-030-2, $55.00 USD
Reviewed by: James A Roffee, Monash University, Australia
Prison sex is a topic that evokes much interest yet about which relatively little is known.
This edited collection, Sex in Prison: Myths and Realities comprises 10 chapters about
the occurrence, nature, and regulation of sex in prison. The book’s title is remarkably
similar to Christine A. Saum and colleagues’ 1995 Prison Journal article, ‘‘Sex in Prison:
Exploring the Myths and Realities.’’ The book’s subtitle, Myths and Realities, inad-
equately conveys the breadth of the issues covered by the contributions and, unlike
Saum’s article, focuses less on myths and more on the contemporary issues concerning
the presence of sex (both consensual and non-consensual) within the prison system.
Catherine D. Marcum opens the collection with Examining Prison Sex Culture.
Underlining the structured nature of the prison environment, she identifies a number
of survival techniques used by inmates and the formation of subcultures to respond to
hostile prison environments. Contextualising the following chapters, it draws the read-
er’s attention to research on sex in prison. Marcum notes the varied nature of sex in
prison, including inmates using masturbation to test whether to build and establish
inappropriate relationships with staff. While generally seen as inappropriate and pro-
hibited, Kristine Levan writes on Consensual Sex in prison, its complex structure, and its
link to power. With limited recognition of the fluidity of human sexuality, the author
discusses situational and dispositional homosexuality, and affords limited attention to
policies and solutions for consensual sex, including the distribution of condoms.
Passionately researched and persuasively written is the contribution, Responding to
Sexual Assault, by Barbara Zaitzow.She argues for a holistic approach to tackling the
problem of sexual victimisation in prison settings, noting that responses need to address
and alter prison subcultures, including those of unwritten rules and codes of silence, for
both staff and detainees. Appropriately critical, Zaitzow details the multiplicity of bar-
riers preventing appropriate responses to sexual assault in the prison setting, including
the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act. In one sentence, Zaitzow crystallises the key
issue that ‘‘stopping prisoner rape is simply an issue of better prison management’’
(p. 71). Through discussion of staff training, managerial approach, appropriate housing
and access to education, she recognises that in responding to sexual assault we
must ‘‘take a serious look at the values that inform our ideas about crime and rehabili-
tation’’ (p. 76).
Tammy L. Castle covers the rare and contentious practice of Conjugal Visitation.
Setting out its historical roots in Mississippi, and its availability to only African
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