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56 How. J. Crime & Just. 1 (2017)

handle is hein.journals/hjcj56 and id is 1 raw text is: The Howard journal Vol 56 No 1. March 2017 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12177 ISSN2059-1098, pp. 1-18 Sex in Prisoner Power Relations: Attitudes and Practices in a Ukrainian Correctional Colony for Men ANTON SYMKOVYCH Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Johannesburg, South Africa Abstract: Most research on prison sex has originated in the global West, often employing quantitative methodology. Building on a semi-ethnographic study of a Ukrainian prison, this article explores how prisoners and officers perceive prisoner sex. Rape was not reported in this prison, despite the relatively young prison population. I argue that the informal prisoner power structure of the prison underworld diminishes sexual abuse. Thus, contrary to much of the literature, masculinity, homophobia, and informal prisoner hierarchies can equally instigate and restrain prison violence and sexual victimisation. Keywords: prison sex; masculinity; sexual violence; prison culture; homophobia; inmate code; Ukraine Sex among male prisoners (henceforth prison sex) is often coercive and expresses the domination of some prisoners by others (Dumond 2000; Tewksbury and West 2000; Trammell 2011). Much of what we know about prison sex stems from research in the United States (US) and United Kingdom (Banbury 2004; Hensley, Struckman-Johnson and Eigenberg 2000; O'Donnell 2004; Tewksbury and West 2000), with a few notable exceptions (Booyens and Bezuidenhout 2014; Egelund 2014; Einat 2012, 2014; Gear 2005; Schifter 1999). Furthermore, because of restricted ac- cess, a great deal of research on prison sex utilises secondary, aggre- gated, or retrospective data. Using ethnographic data from a Ukrainian medium-security prison for men, I argue that, contrary to much of the lit- erature, masculinity, homophobia, and informal prisoner hierarchies can both restrain and instigate violence and sexual exploitation. I demonstrate how power relations in prison incorporate human sexuality and mimic the social gender division, and how prisoner sociality reconciles virulent homophobia with sex among men. I begin by reviewing sex's role in men's prisons (hereafter prisons) as a substitute for heterosexual liaisons, a means of inter-prisoner 1 0 2016 The Howard League and john Wiley & Sons Ltd Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK

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