Sex Offenders and the Prison Movement

Looking at the penal code for what has been codified as sexual assault by the criminal injustice system reveals a variety of different offenses, from various misdemeanors to serious felony violations. In the United $tates those accused of committing such heinous acts are considered to be the lowest of the low and prisons are no different. This essay attempts to address the topics of sex offenders within prison society and their relevance to the prison movement.

In attempting to write something on these topics I was forced to keep coming back to two main points of discussion: (1) the contradiction of unity vs. divisions within the prison movement itself, and (2) the all sex is rape line as popularized by the Maoist Internationalist Movement. The strength of my argument stems from both of these points.

What is the Prison Movement?

Before moving forward it is necessary for me to explain what we are trying to build unity around. The prison movement is defined by the various movements, organizations and individuals who are at this time struggling against the very many different faces of the Amerikkkan injustice system. Whether these struggles take place in Georgia, California, Texas, Pennsylvania or any other corner of the U.$. empire is not of much importance. What is important, however, is the fact that those organizations and individuals are currently playing a progressive and potentially revolutionary role in attacking Amerikkka's oppressive prison system.

In one state's prisons or jails the struggle might take the shape of a grievance campaign, or other group actions aimed to abolish the forced labor of prisoners. These movements tend to be led by an array of lumpen organizations. Some are revolutionary, some are not. Some are narrowly reformist in nature and will go no further than the winning of concessions. Others remain stuck in the bourgeois mindset of individualism while deceptively using a revolutionary rhetoric to attain their goals.

However, despite their separate objectives they are each in their own way taking collective action when possible to challenge their oppressive conditions. Furthermore, these movements, organizations and individuals, when taken as a whole, represent an awakening in the political and revolutionary consciousness of prisoners not seen since the last round of national liberation struggles of the internal semi-colonies. Those are the progressive qualities of the new prison movement.

The negative and reactionary aspects of the prison movement are characterized by the fact that many of these lumpen organizations still operate along traditional lines. Most continue to participate in a parasitic economy and carry out anti-people activity that is detrimental to the very people they claim to represent. In relation to the essay, most of these movements and organizations also have policies that exclude those the imperialist state has labelled "sex offenders," But can these movements and organizations really afford to adhere to these state-initiated divisions? What are the ramifications to all this?

According to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the number of registered sex offenders in the United $tates for 2012 was 747,408, with the largest numbers in California, Texas and Florida.(1) Consequently, these are also three of the biggest prison states.

All Sex is Rape!

In the 1990s, the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) became infamous amongst the Amerikan left for two reasons. The first was its class analysis, which said that Amerikkkan workers were not exploited, but instead formed a labor aristocracy due to the fact that they were being paid more than the value of their labor. Amerikkkans were therefore to be considered parasites on the Third World proletariat & peasantry, as well as enemies of Third World socialist movements.

The second reason was upholding the political line of First World pseudo-feminist Catherine MacKinnon, who said that there was no real difference between what the accused rapist does and what most men call sex, but never go to jail for. MacKinnon put forth the theory that under a system of patriarchy (which we live under) all sexual relations revolve around unequal power relations between those gendered men and those gendered wimmin. As such, people can never truly consent to sex. From this MIM drew the logical conclusion: all sex is rape.(2)

This line is not just radical, but revolutionary for its indictment of patriarchy and implication of the injustice system. MIM developed the all sex is rape line even further when it explained the relevance of rape accusations from Amerikkan wimmin against New Afrikan men and the hystorical relation between the lynching of New Afrikans by Amerikkkan lynch mobs during Jim Crow. Even in the 1990s when MIM looked at the statistics for rape accusations and convictions, it was able to deduce that New Afrikans were still being nationally oppressed by white wimmin in alliance with their white brethren.(3)

That said, this doesn't mean that violent and pervasive acts aren't committed against people who are gender oppressed in our society. Rather, I am drawing attention to the fact that Amerikan society eroticizes power differentials, and the media sexualizes children, yet they both pretend to abhor both. Regardless of who has done what we must not lose sight of what should be our main focus: uniting against the imperialist state, the number one enemy of the oppressed nations.

It is no secret that to call someone a "sex offender" in prison is to subject that persyn to violence and possibly death. Furthermore, it is a hystorical fact that pigs have used sex offender accusations as a way to discredit leading voices amongst the oppressed or simply to have prisoners target someone they have a persynal vendetta against. We must resist these COINTELPRO tactics and continue to unite and consolidate our forces, as to participate in these self-inflicted lynchings is just another way the pigs get us to do their dirty work for them.

Hystorical Comparisons

In carrying out self-criticism, Mao Zedong said that there had been too many executions during China's Cultural Revolution. In particular, ey stated that while it may be justified to execute a murderer or someone who blows up a factory, it may also be justified not to execute some of these same people. Mao suggested that those who were willing should go and perform some productive labor so that both society could gain something positive and the persyn in question could be reformed.(4)

Maoists believe that problems amongst the people should be handled peacefully among the people and thru the methods of discussion and debate. Most prisoners are locked up exactly because they engaged in some type of anti-people activity at one point or another of their lives. Should these actions define prisoners? According to MIM Thought, all U.$. citizens will be viewed as reforming criminals by the Third World socialist movement under the Joint Dictatorship of the Proletariat of the Oppressed Nations (JDPON). The First World lumpen will be no exception regardless of crime of choice.