Stamps_Marla_Caging_Blog 2

In Beth Ritchie’s, Caging Deviance, she argues that sexual orientation and gender expression is a central feature of imprisonment. And she uses ethos to draw the reader into the conversation. She tells the story of Roderick Johnson, a black man whose sexual orientation is gay, who experienced sexual misconduct and more while in prison.

Ritchie highlights how there are racialized archetypes in prison. In the case of Johnson, he was hypersexualized and rape-able (93). I would assume that if Johnson was treated as such due to his sexual orientation, I think most men who identify as gay are viewed as such. I would have never thought of engaging in consensual acts of intimacy would be a form of resistance in prison because they are sex segregated. Homosexuality is deviant, and prisons aim to suppress individuals and rehabilitate them. It is almost like prisons are trying to rid a person of their sexual orientation.

The struggle to prove one’s masculinity in prison is even more interesting. Ritchie mentions it is easy for a homosexual person to stand out in a hyper-masculine prison. And she continues to talk about the power dynamics within that space. Masculinity is associated with dominance and power. I think that heterosexual men, attempt to claim dominance over those that are homosexual. Ritchie mentions that, sometimes, homosexual inmates have sexual relationships with officers or other inmates in prison who have some sort of status for protection.

A few minutes into reading the piece, I thought of the docuseries aired on television about prison. The series often highlights homosexuality in prisons and interviewing at least one homosexual inmate. But, the series never focuses on what is actually happen. It is only surface level, meaning why are they in prison. How long is the sentence? What they look forward to when they get out? Are they repeat offenders, if so, what will they change so they don’t go back?

                                                                                           https://usa.newonnetflix.info/info/70148133 

I think something to discuss more as class or to just think about would be how do we address masculinity in prison? What can we do to ensure the safety of those that aren’t heterosexual? And how do we train officers in the prisons?

Brenda Ramirez on Objection!

One interesting point Richie makes on Objections! Treatment of Queers in Criminal Court is regarding the need for prosecutors to dehumanize people in order to justify giving them the death penalty. However, even more compelling is the way in which how easily race, class, and sexuality can influence the justification of a death penalty when the defendant deviates from being a wealthy, heterosexual white man.

Mata’s case led me to think about the way in which queer people are at a huge disadvantage because traditional ideas of sex and sexuality are likely to consistently put them in vulnerable positions when the law is involved. Not only are queer people more like to get sentenced longer for things that would be easily dismissed if the situation involved heterosexuals, but they are more likely to die in jail because of their sexuality. However, I think the most infuriating thing is the fact that, as Richie explains, the court systems play on these homophobic stereotypes despite hard evidence which proves innocence to justify killing someone -and it usually works.

            Richie’s reference to the similarities in Mata and Aileen Wuornos’ case raises cause for concern. I remember watching endless documentaries on Aileen and all of them depicted her as someone who hated men, a “butch” lesbian who took advantage of them and killed them. Very rarely did I ever find a documentary which detailed her childhood experiences with sexual abuse, neglect and how all of these traumas played into her murders. Much like with Mata, instead of being provided with proper therapy, she was sentenced to the death penalty and died with the portrayal of a monster.  Cases in which white, male, domestic terrorists have massacred groups of people have obtained more sympathy than queer people. People like Dylan Roof who committed acts of domestic terrorism are deemed by the media as “loners”, “disturbed”, “mentally unstable”, while queer people are demonized and dehumanized. 

            These unfortunate and reoccurring stories about queer and gender non-conforming people either being killed or unjustly charged with serious crimes because of their gender identity or sexuality reminds me of the Ally Lee Steinfeld case. Ally was stabbed in her genitals and had her eyes gauged out in Missouri. Despite the conditions in which she was left after her murder, Missouri police insist that the murder was not a hate-crime. Interestingly enough, many cases consisting of murders against trans people are not deemed hate-crimes and are hardly ever treated as such.

Why do you think it's so easy for the court system to dehumanize queer and gender non-conformists to the point that they can be charged with harsher crimes and sentences in comparison to their heterosexual counterparts even with proper evidence?

THOUGHTS ON OBJECTION!

In the late 1980’s, Miguel Castillo was convicted for the murder of former lover, Rene Chinea. The investigation and prosecution was lead by a perverse and violent narrative of gay men and criminal activity. Andrea Ritchie (2011) highlights the way this case was handled to indicate a clear discrimination against queer communities because of this common narrative in Objection!.

 What Ritchie (2011) proposed on the narrative of the violent gay killer, overriding other evidence presented, indicated to me a troubling frequency that still exists within and outside the criminal justice system. Queerness, like most deviances from societal norms, is still to this day highlighted in an almost criminal matter. We may act as though we live in a post-homophobic or even transphobic society, but at the end of the day, the criminal gay is still a common narrative. According the Williams Institute of Law, lesbians, gays, and bisexuals are three times more likely to be incarcerated than the general population (UCLA 2013). What this number indicates is that, despite strides in recent years with marriage equality, narratives of queer criminality still rule dominant ideology.

 In recent years, there has been a lot of discourse over trans people’s access to public restrooms. Whether or not trans folk should go to the bathroom of their identified gender or the sex of their birth has been much of debate. While one side argues for bathroom inclusivity, the other voices against it, many of the opposers claiming that trans people, especially transwomen are a danger to their children and their spouses. This, much like the narrative surrounding Castillo, goes back to the idea of queer criminality. Amongst dominant ideology, queer people have always been painted as pedophiles and rapists due to their sexuality being seen as something perverse. This is especially notable amongst discourse surrounding gay men and even moreso, transwomen. Because of this, people on the opposing side of the debate surround trans access to bathrooms feel threatened by simply going to the bathroom.

 I am a lesbian, however, I have never felt criminalized for it so I feel I have privilege in this sense. I understand on the other hand, the stereotypes surrounding each sector of the LGBT community and how these negatively affect public perception of queer folk. By criminalizing LGBT folks, there is this othering of queer identity opposed to cisgender or heterosexual identity. Sexual and gender identity outside the norm becomes this deviance, hindering dominant ideology. I think queer people often give in too easily to this when engaging with other queer folk, seeing them as “other”. More often than not, I see other lesbians go on tirades of who is and who isn’t a woman. This incessant transphobia is harmful to the queer community as a whole and it fails at looking away from this “othering” of trans-people.

My question is how do you suppose, we combat both the criminalization of queerhood in the dominant sector and the exclusionary ideology with queer communities? What are some tactics we could use to counter harmful perspectives such as these?

Alex Phistry on Objection!

In Andrea Ritchie’s piece entitled “Objections! Treatment of Queers in Criminal Court” she relays numerous instances in which queer people have been unjustly treated in criminal courts in America; particularly, she opens her piece with the story of Rene Chinea’s murder and Miguel Castillo’s wrongful conviction. She drives her argument by stating, “the stigma of laws explicitly criminalizing queer identities and sexualities has left an enduring stain on the notion of justice, continuing to inform the treatment of queers in courts, particularly when accused in criminal cases,” (Ritchie 73). In doing so, Ritchie argues that in many cases, queer people are not only criminalized on the basis of their sexuality or gender presentation, but also on the basis of stereotypes perpetuated by a heteronormative society, and are usually treated harsher in interrogations by police as well as on trial by prosecutors, judges, juries, and sometimes even their own defense lawyers.

The notion that queer people are treated more harshly by the criminal justice system is not new; it was this harsh treatment that led to major events in queer history such as the Stonewall Riots and the riot in Compton’s Cafeteria. The most striking part of Ritchie’s piece, in my opinion, was the story of Rene Chinea’s murder and Miguel Castillo’s wrongful conviction. The fact that the Chicago Police Department was able to make an arrest on basically entirely circumstantial evidence and an obviously coerced confession is infuriating, especially when their reasoning for doing so was based on blatantly homophobic stereotypes of gay men and the relationships they have. However, the story was not surprising as the CPD has a long history of skewing the lines of the law.

The story of Miguel Castillo’s wrongful conviction made me think about the numerous occasions within the last decade in which I have heard of wrongdoings by the CPD, particularly with white cops, particularly with victims being people of color and/or belonging to the LGBTQIA community. The shooting and attempted cover-up of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by white police officer Jason Van Dyke is a prime, widely known example. Other examples would be the several trans women of color who have been found dead around Chicago within the last two decades. Their deaths were not covered by local news, nor were they fully investigated by the police. It seems as though the CPD not only criminalizes the queer community in the court system, but they also do so in their lack of care for victims of color/victims belonging to the queer community.

Though the history of CPD’s harsh treatment and lack of sympathy for the queer community is nothing new, it is still disheartening to say the least. I am not saying it is the entire CPD who overly criminalizes the queer and POC communities, nor am I saying that this phenomenon only occurs in Chicago. I am saying that there are a multitude of stories in which queer people and people of color are criminalized, given unfair treatment throughout their entire judicial process, and who are treated as criminals even when they are the victims. Ritchie addresses several of these cases in her piece and it clearly demonstrates that this is and has been an ongoing problem for the queer community as well as in communities with a majority of POC. Violence and lack of sensitivity/understanding by the law and judicial systems are perpetuating these cycles of violence within these communities. In doing so, they are creating the stigmas by which most of the people perpetuating them are so afraid of. In order to facilitate more understanding, a major change in the way the legal/judicial systems view the queer and POC communities.

Ritchie highlights numerous instances of violence against POC and the queer community. Why do actions like this keep taking place? Why is hatred, disgust, and lack of understanding/sympathy a norm that is continuously perpetuated by the legal/judicial systems within these communities?

Dom Rosario on Caging Deviance

   For our reading of Andrea Ritchie's chapter, Caging Deviance, there were many points that she made that I wanted to write about. The one point I think stuck out to me the most was the point made in the beginning of the chapter under the history of prisons that "prisons have always been steeped in religious morality, seeking to curb those deemed immoral and instill in them the proper rigidly defined sexual and gender roles" (Ritchie,  pg. 94). In this idea, the author states that prisons began as a place to contain what society saw as its deviants.

   The idea that society uses prisons to do away with the individuals that don't adhere to its rules and regulations is not a surprising one. For centuries, that has been their purpose. What stuck me as surprising, though it really shouldn't have, is how religiously based prisons really are, a point brought up a few times in this chapter. The basis of the laws that put people in prison are based in religious morals, which range from crimes many people would consider worthy of being behind bars such as murder and crimes that seem more of a personal choice (which can be debated somewhere else) such as sex work. 

    As time has past, people who have been considered "deviants" have somewhat changed. Before the early 2000's, people who engaged in same-sex acts were jailed and considered sex offenders, as it was considered "laws against nature". Because people claim that Christianity and other religions condemn the act of sodomy, it was seen as immoral and against what was "normal" in society and therefore written as against the law.  In reading this chapter and thinking further, I was brought to much more awareness of how much religion plays in what people consider moral/immoral and normal/abnormal, leading to what is legal and illegal.

    When I think of religions affects on the law now, the first issue that comes to mind is the issue of sex work. As someone with acquaintances who engage in voluntary sex work, I do not see the issue of someone doing what they please with their body. Yet since society sees these individuals as "Sexual deviants" because what they do for survival isn't something they see as moral or normal, these individuals are harassed by law enforcement and jailed. There is a nice chunk of the U.S prison population who are incarcerated because of laws restricting what people can do with their own bodies, more having to do with sex-related incidences.

Can anyone think of laws that do not have basis within religious morals? If so, what are these laws meant to do? If not, why do you think all of our laws are based in this kind of way?