Few really knew about how'corporal' America's prisons became as America entered its fourth decade of the 21st century. Begining in 2002, and crowned with gold in 2004, the so-called 'Religious Right' cemented what they had sought for over fifty years: dominance over America's polciits by possession of all levers of power. By 2004, their work was complete; from that time forth, Supreme Copurt appointments, Senate and House majorities, majorities of the various State Legislatures, as well as school systems by the thousands got on the bandwagon. Those who did not were summarily prosecuted, imprisoned, and locked away for good. America's transformation into a 'Golden Age Old Testament Colony" where the ancient verities of start corporal punishment were institutionalized. Gone went the Eighth Amendment to the Constitition. The Supreme Court OK's Prison, then School, corporal punishment. The term" Spanking" was no longer liberla psychoballe for"child abuse". A sharp rise in crime in the 20's and 30's prompted a public demand fr PAINFUL puntivization. The prisons became mechanisms for the efficient, programmatic delivery of the most embarrasing, publicly humilliating as well as physiucally painful punishments which usually took the form of lashings by a wide prison strap, hand spankings over the knee of male prison giards, and application of extremely painful electrical probes into an_l cavtieis. Modern technology had met the Old Testament: if you offended in America, you PAID--you PAID with your physical well being, your once pristine, unscarred buttocks, and your _s_e_x_ual virginity when it came to the same _s_e_x_.
Jason Boykin was your typical White Collar criminal. Preturnaturely smart, arrogant, he was the classic real life image of the Tom Wolfe 'Master of the Universe". He built small and medium-sized businesses, but he did so without'benefit' of paying personal income taxes. He craftily perverted financial data to hide gains, and managed to shift and hide income faster than a Harlem Steetcorner table game-con. But, then it all came raining down. One night, Boykin's wife discovered receipts that clearly showed that her husband was NOT spending nights in those "boring, same-ole same-ole businessman hotels on the roads". He was visiting the knkiest, erotic lovenests that money could buy, and he obviously wasn;t alone. Like a woman truly scorned, Laura Boykin, an Attorney, knew that spousal testimony was inadmissable--much more so in Blblical America than ever before. She also knew that when spouses divorced their cheating spouses and they, too had IRS liability, the courts almost spared them jail time, but mandated anywhere between 30 and 60 lashes or cane cuts---the Judge invariably made that choice--to be paid by the co-signing female. The major tax(and other kind) of cheater, The Husband, faired, far, FAR worse.
Boykion was convicted of tax ievasion, and sentenced to two years. In this new age in America, White Collar Criminals did not do their time in less restrictive, safer prisons. Crime was crime, Congress decreed; ALL criminals are: CRIMINALS. And ALL criminals do HARD time, and ALL criminals regularly get spanked. The Supreme Court affirmed this. And some Americans thought that this still didn;t go far enough.
Boykin was sentenced by the most notoriously tough Federal Judge. United States District Court Judge Michelle S. Witzworwick was known for her incredible scholarship and hard work; but no other judge in a strap-happy system relished the imposition of corporal punishment than did" Whip'Em Harder Witzworwick".
Janet Foyce, a Pulitzer Prize-Winning reporter for THE WALL STREET JOURNAL write a prison account of Jason Boykin to report, with approival, on how penology is practiced in these new, modern times. Instead of this being an expose that was strongly critical of the'cruelties' encountered in her exploration of one 'poor' man's saga through the terrifying world of America's modern federal prison and her allied Special Corporal Punishment Units---known derisively by Inmates as "Sick Poo"(SCPU). Foyce's story is a warning to other would-be Jason Boykins either doing all of the nefarious illegal deeds that landed him in Ashcroft Pentitentiary in the first place--as well as all budding ones out there just begining to toy with the mere IDEA of doing the same things. Her book is subtitled, "A Cautionary Tale".
In Installment I, which begins next week, we follow a terrified Boykin as he is sentenced. We learn how his noted Attorney, one of America's last remaining closet liberals, Patti Steele, assured her client that he'd avoid the Strap, and would only go to Level D, or Day Hand Spanking, PERIOD. No jail. No Maximum Security. No exposure to" those predators in there", as she said sheepishly, always with eyes looking down and away from her client her in rich Upper Middle Western Accent. We see the shock and terror--as well as the pitiful, incredible outburst in the court by Boykin as he is led away after hearing his sentence. We follow the Lilly White Upper Class Ivy League educated and Successful At Everything Man of the World as he is Intaked into Ashcroft, and given his first 'taste' of Old NEW Fashined American Prison discipline.
We then skip ahead a week after the first sores from Boykin;s first spanking area all healed, and he meets his first of three scheduled sessions in the notorious LFU, or Leather Flagellation Unit. Our literate but uneducated prison nomenklatura have dubbed this room and what goes on there, aptly enough, the 'Life for You" room. A lifetime and then some passes in that room, as Boykin takes his first of three incredibly powerful prison strappings. The Judge made sure that the system's NASTIEST Strapmeister of all, Corrections Commander Lawton Rule, known as 'Mr. Clean" due to his dead-on, exact resemblance to that mythical figure who graced the bottle of a cleaning product with that name, did the'honors'. Rule, who weighed in at over 300 Lbs and stood at almost 6'8" in height, was almost albino white. Every micro of a hair was shaved from his ample head; all that remained were extremnely verdant, threeatening snow white eyebrows. His face was perpetually clcked in a sneer, and his massive pecs inside of an impeccably sharched plain white tee shirt burst out like cartoon figures of massive snowballs bursting through walls. "A whippin' from 'Clean' leaves you unable to sit, s_it or lie for WEEKS", a ten year Inmate doing time for serial Gay Bashing told Foyce."Whatever happens in there between youz two, after he gets done, you just' plain don' REMEMBER".
Foyce noted that" more goes on in the elaborate, complex and detailed pre punishment preparation than you can imagine. Likewise, the PPMR, or Post Punishment Medial Relay--which our hothouse wags of course have dubbed the" Please Poke Me Readily" routine---"is as stark, challenging, perpexing , and the cause of more _s_e_x_ual ambiguity and hertofore _s_e_x_ual orientations and leanings in almost every hetero_s_e_x_ual Inmate who experience it", Foyce reports. Foyce was the first, and only, non Official female allowed to witness the entire punishment process, and even was permitted to spend a night on"The Predator's Ball", the notorious _s_e_x_ually active cellblock where the institition's staff basically conceded governance and the flow of everyday life to the whims of its wild populace."One thing is for certain", Foyce said," whan and if the authorities ever lifted a finger to stop something, those boys all knew full well how harsh they'd be treated if they defied this license allowed them. There are some procedures in there far harsher than a session with 'Mr. Clean", Foyce observes.
NEXT WEEK: ON WITH THE STORY.