Turned Out: Sexual Assault Behind Bars

New documentary explores the historically taboo subject of homosexual relations and rape in prison.

by Peter Wagner, July 3, 2003

New documentary: Turned Out: Sexual Assault Behind Bars

Of the over two million Americans in jail today, one out of five inmates will be sexually assaulted during their incarceration. Most of those who will be “turned out,” or sodomized, and turned into sexual slaves, will be nonviolent drug offenders who have doubled the prison population over the last decade. This video is a shocking but insightful expose of the taboo subject of homosexual rape and homosexual relations in prison. It features frank and often graphic interviews with inmates at correctional facilities throughout the U.S., in which they explain the sexual hierarchy of “iboys” or “sissies,” who play the female role to more powerful inmates known as “men,” with the latter often developing relationships with several “boys” and thus developing “families,” which provide sex, companionship and protection for more vulnerable inmates. Prisoners also discuss the underground economy, the sociology of power and lust, and the sexual exploitation of inmates by prison guards, while interviews with a prison warden and family members of inmates reveal the general awareness of sexual assault within our prison system and the culture of silence which enables its perpetuation.

It’s expensive ($295 to buy, $95 to rent), but we don’t know of anything that comes even close to this on this topic.

[Editor’s note, July 10, 2014: full film is now available here.]