Pink prison makes Texan inmates blush

[T_i_B]

Oddly enough, I think that this is actually a very good idea!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1892555,00.html

For some, it may be a sign that prison life has become too cushy. For others, it represents the ultimate humiliation as the final shred of dignity is stripped away.

At a county jail in Texas - maximum capacity four males and one female - inmates are dressed in pink jumpsuits. They sleep on pink sheets and wear pink slippers. Even the walls and the bars of the cells are painted pink.

"I wanted to stop reoffenders," the sheriff of Mason County, Clint Low, told the Associated Press. "They don't want to wear them. Working inmates get a choice to work outside or sit inside, and some choose to sit inside because they don't want people to see them. They would rather stay upstairs."

The tactic seems to be working, although it has had an adverse effect on the prison's policy of using inmates for community labour. "I'm not going outside in these things," said one inmate at the ageing jail. "It's a good deterrent because I don't want to wear them any more." Another agreed. "The county would have more inmate labour without them," he said.

[Fierce]

1. Studies have shown bubblegum-pink walls have a soothing effect.

I don't see it as a deterrent, however, against reoffending.

[Warpy]

2. Those of us who grew up as little girls in the 50s

and suffered through one damn Pepto Bismol pink bedroom after another would be considering homicide after a coupld of hours in one of those pink cells.

[annabanana]

12. ~ I remember ~

MY Mom was cool enough to let me decorate in lavender.

[Warpy]

16. I didn't get to pick my color until I was about 15

It was YELLOW.

Anything but that godawful PINK.

Even to this day, I hate pink. I look great in it, but it's not in my wardrobe.

[kestrel91316]

33. Big sis got pink; I got lavender; I definitely got the better deal.

[Tesha]

17. Pink (at least as accents) is back.

http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?topcategoryId=15567&catalogId=10103&storeId=12&productId=71765&langId=-1&categoryId=15622&chosenPartNumber=90099153

[geniph]

24. "This cell looks like it's been hosed down with Pepto Bismol!"

(paraphrase from Steel Magnolias)

[Raine]

32. Blue was always my color but

at first I had a yellow room that I hated then my parents let me do it in blue. I was never a pink person but in the last few years I started to like it.

[skids]

3. Uh no...

Studies showed that pink walls had a soothing effect for about a month, after which they caused a rise in anger and frustration.

Blue caused immediate anger and frustration. Other than off-white, the only safe color IIRC was green.

Ghod that was what, 15 years ago? I can't believe I still remember that study.

[Fierce]

4. Thanks for the update.

nt

[noonwitch]

10. When I was new with the state, we got a county director from DOC

Corrections got sick of her, so they transferred her to social services. We came into the office one Monday and she had had all the walls painted bright pink. When we asked about it, we were told that "Pink walls will help reduce stress and anger in the workplace". I told my supervisor at the time that pink walls made me want to punch people, when I never wanted to punch people otherwise.

Now, we have an office with gray-toned walls and blue-gray cubicle walls. It works for me. I just thought pink was unprofessional.

[Blue_Tires]

46. that study may be even older

i remember back in the 80s some big-time football school in the midwest (Iowa?? iirc) got some controversy because they painted the visiting team's locker room pink---the home team's locker room was of course all black

[marshall]

44. Turning them on to their feminine sides?

And by feminine I don't mean womanly or female, I mean the traits that society associates with being nurturing and peaceful.

Judith Halberstam should write a sequel to her book "Female Masculinity" based on stuff like this.

[sakabatou]

48. Green and blue are also shown to have a soothing effect

[Zhade]

5. Nice play off inherent homophobia.

There is nothing wrong with the color pink!

(Of course, I'm queer, so I will be accused of bias in this matter. :P )

[T_i_B]

6. Well do you think the sort of people who commit violent crimes...

..are going to be the sort of people who like wearing pink clothes? I just can't see it myself.

[High Plains]

8. Most jail inmates are not violent offenders...

...unless they are there awaiting trial, and they won't have outside labor.

In Texas jails, you're likely to find petty thieves, drunk drivers, bad check writers, and drug offenders.

[Nevernose]

36. There's no such thing as a petty thief

Sorry to jump into your conversation, but I'd like to add that there's no such thing as a petty thief -- they're are only thieves who haven't figured out a way to steal more money.

Of course, all four categories you mentioned -- thieves, drunk drivers, bad checks writers, and srugiies -- are usually in need of treatment and not only incarceration.

[Divine Discontent]

14. gag me with a...

spoon! pink, barf! :)

[Occulus]

25. Oh YES there is

I can't imagine anything more horrifying than pink everything.

As a matter of fact, being constantly surrounded by any one color would drive me batshit crazy in about a day. I don't see anything particularly homophobic about this, either- "studies have shown that the color pink" etc., and etc.

About the only rhing I could tolerate would be a pristine white or off-white, were I given only one color to choose from. (Yes, I know- white is not a color.)

[LostinVA]

7. Yes, humiliate them by treating them "girlie" -- ugh

What a nasty dude... and not the first. A sheriff in NC has done this for years -- for the same reason: to basically humiliate them by "stigmatizing: them with the gay/female color of pink.

[Zhade]

9. And what a nice message it subconciously sends about gays and women!

Grrrr!

[LostinVA]

13. Bingo

[One_Life_To_Give]

11. Don't get it

When I see a guy in a Pink shirt I don't think he's gay or girly. A conservative co-worker was wearing a pink polo the other day. It didn't make him appear more liberal or effeminate.
Why are some people so hung up on a particular shade of Red?

[jseankil]

19. Girls = Pink, Boys = Blue

It's been marketed that way for decades, not sure how you missed it.

[One_Life_To_Give]

20. Girls can't wear blue?

Oh I understand the whole Blue-Boy thing. What I can't fathom is why any adult guy would be concerned about wearing pink. There is a pink shirt hanging in my closet, does that make me less of a man?

[Ecumenist]

34. Amen, One Life To Give...

My husband is all man, 6'6" real Texan Bohemian and he is Gee-Or-jus in pink. As a matter of fact, he wants to paint the walls of our new home in various hues of pink washes. This is so stupid that because a man isn't gay he would hate pink.

[happyslug]

22. Till the late 1800s it was Girls=Green, Boys= Blue.

Green was the color of the earth, Blue was the color of the Sky. The Green-Blue split goes back Millennia Green was the color of the earth, and thus the color of the old Pagan female Earth-Goddesses, Freja (Friday is named after her). Blue was the color of the Germanic god, Thor (who Thursday is named after), the color of the Sky.

Pink replaced Green in the late 1800s when artificial dyes were first invented. Some English businessmen came up with the idea of using Pink for girls instead of Green.

Freja (Does NOT mention her color, just background on her legend):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freya

Thor (Does not mention his color, just background on his legend):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor

[LostinVA]

28. Yup

[Lautremont]

15. Isn't there another prison somewhere in the South

that pumps a kind of gross intestinal odor into the cells? I read about it somewhere, in Harper's, perhaps, but don't have a link. That sounds much worse to me - but maybe it's the same place.

[Laughing Mirror]

18. That gross intestinal odor is usually already there permeating the cells

Do they really need to pump in more of it?

[bitchkitty]

49. Fulton Co. Jail used to have pink walls

in the holding cells. I paid them a visit one evening after they pulled my boyfriend and I over for kissing while driving - I was ripped to the tits but I remember the pink.

[JoFerret]

21. Sick idea dreamed up

by sick homophobic misogynist sadists.

[geniph]

23. Yes, because there's nothing worse than feminine attributes, right?

Pink=feminine, which apparently means =weak, =powerless. To be feared and loathed.

The worst thing in the world, apparently, for some men, is to be considered "girly." Feminized. Made one of those weak, powerless, feared and hated FEMALES.

:puke:

[Iris]

26. Yep. Kind of kills 2 birds with one stone, doesn't it?

Keep the "criminals" in their places and the women folk, too.

This is the kind of dribble freaky right-wingers like to send emails about. I can't believe I'm seeing it touted as a "good idea" here.

[LostinVA]

29. Tell me about it

[TroglodyteScholar]

27. Nothing worse than masculine attributes in a woman, either, right?

Women want no more to be "manly" than men want to be "feminine." Women are society's victims in a lot of ways, but this case is a grand stretch.

:puke:

The harshest judgment I could pass on this whole affair is "FABULOUS."

[Iris]

30. Most evolved adults recognize that they have masculine and feminine traits

and are afraid of neither.

This is neither late-breaking nor news. A right wing email has been going around about this for years. http://www.snopes.com/crime/deserts/pink.asp

I'm sick of people acting like we should treat criminals like animals. I'm not saying criminals should not be punished but it is a sick society that takes out its frustrations on captives, whether in a penitentiary here in the US or in a war prison in Iraq.

[TroglodyteScholar]

41. Acknowledged and agreed...

But now you consider this stunt equal to treating inmates like animals? I think I'm getting mixed messages from you.

[Iris]

45. putting them in a garishly painted building for others to poke fun of and

laugh at.

And, did you notice further down the thread that one prison official who did this in Arizona ended up in prison himself? Basically, I'm disgusted by the idea that treating prisoners in humiliating ways is somehow justified when it really seems like some sort of sick revenge makes the rest of us no better than they are.

[gatlingforme]

31. a classic case of the machisimo mentality at the expense of the

community and tax payers. what an effing joke

[niyad]

35. joe arpiao, maricopa cty, AZ, does the same thing--he is one sick

person, yet he keeps getting re-elected. he has even made amnesty's lists of bad guys, yet he keeps getting re-elected.

[lildreamer316]

37. ALREADY DID THIS one county south of here!

The Davidson County NC jail was painted pink during a particular sherriff's tenure. Even had teddy bears on the walls too.
He went to jail himself for fraud not too long ago. Hee hee.

[LostinVA]

38. I hadn't heard about that creep going to jail!

Can't believe my mom didn't tell me!

[lies and propaganda]

39. we have 'The Worlds Toughest Sheriff" here in Phx

Joe Arpaio, hes a total dick.

Inmates live in tents, get GREEN baloney sandwhichs to eat, have to wear pink everything, and he constantly is bragging how he spends more to ffed animals than the criminals.

Just wanted to add that cause hes a prick and has been for over 20 years. We beat you Texas!

[carzen]

40. good god, what morons

[Xenotime]

42. This is somebody's sick dream...

How sick can you get?

[Odin2005]

43. OMG, that is funny.

But if the hummiliation keeps them from commiting more crimes more power to the sheriff.

Oh, and I don't see how this is sexist, I'm of the opinion that men being afraid of looking "girly" is something innate, the results of hundreds of thousands of years of sexual selection, not the result of a sexist culture.

[NuttyFluffers]

47. so does the corset training come before or after the hoop skirts?

:dilemma: :spank: