Prison guard rapes prisoners (audio)

It took years before allegations of Harry Nicoletti's abuse were investigated by the state Dept. of Corrections and charged by the DA (Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette.com).

From State Pens to Penn State
Mumia Abu Jamal (Prison Radio)
(Nov. 11, 2011) The shocking child sex scandal rocking (Paterno and) Penn State University in State College, PA (and now Bernie Fine at Syracuse) is an explosion of almost nuclear proportions.

It has all the elements designed to produce a media firestorm: fame, money, illicit sex, deception -- and betrayal. At the core of it is betrayal of the country's deepest religion -- sports -- and of those we claim to adore and revere most, the children.

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• 6 more guards surrender in ongoing probe

The scandal has shown how great wealth, fame, and the business of college sports corrupted everything and everyone, to keep the gravy train rolling. Penn State's football program is an extremely lucrative gravy train, bringing in tens of millions of dollars.



Penn State Univ. itself is the biggest employer in State College and one of the biggest colleges in the US with over 45,000 students.

The gravy here flowed thick and heavy. And like other powerful institutions, its sins were covered so as not to rock the money-making boat.

It reminds us of the great scandals that shook the foundations of the Catholic Church in the 1990s, the ripples of which are still with us.

They remind us that rape is about power -- and sex is but a tool of domination of the weak by the powerful.

That same dynamic is at work whether it is a man and a woman, a priest and a child, or a coach and a boy.

But is it the same when it is two men?



How about when one man is a prison guard [pictured left] and other a prisoner?

When news leaked out several months ago that rapes were widespread in the blocks of the state prison in Pittsburgh, PA, the reaction was largely local, mostly concentrated in Western Pennsylvania.

Here it has all the dynamics of the rape culture we have discussed: It is the powerful against the powerless.

Indeed, in some respects it is more pronounced, for systems are in place to protect women and children (whether they are followed or not is another question), which necessitates hiding these things.

• Penn. prison guard Harry Nicoletti, 59, was arrested and accused of sexually and physically abusing more than 20 inmates, according to the Allegheny County DA. He faces 92 counts of institutional sexual assault, official oppression, terroristic threats, and simple assault.

But in prison, the indicted guard, Harry Nicoletti, allegedly used his power as a state prison official to threaten men he raped and abused with being sent to the "hole" [isolation] and death if they told.

He reportedly ordered prisoners to contaminate food with spit, urine, and feces. He punched, slapped, and spat on prisoners. He used racist language with complete abandon. And these things went on for years.

Schools, churches, and prisons -- institutions of immense social power, exploiting, abusing, and hurting the powerless -- are places that seemingly attract rapeholics.

• Source: The Pittsburgh-based Human Rights Coalition has been working on this story and related ones for the last several years.