Porn Produced by Georgia Prisoners
On July 16, 2024, the Human & Civil Rights Coalition (HCRC) of Georgia posted screenshots to its Facebook page from pornographic videos produced inside Wilcox State Prison and posted online by state prisoners. As the post noted, the videos ran up to 45 minutes, yet at no point did a guard from the state Department of Corrections (DOC) intervene to stop the recordings.
A few months later, on November 5, 2024, Filter Mag published an interview between a prison journalist using the pseudonym “Jimmy Iakovos” and a fellow prisoner identified as “P,” who produces videos of prisoners having sex. For that, “P” said that he paid each participant $100 before editing and uploading the finished clips to a subscription-based file-sharing website. There Iakovos found some had been viewed 600,000 times by subscribers paying $20 monthly.
While “P” deflected questions about exploitation (“I didn’t make them poor,” he said of his prisoner-performers), he admitted that some scenes had devolved into anal rape, when one performer wanted to stop but the other refused. “If I see a vid going bad, I just cut it off,” he said, adding: “I’m not giving either of them a second chance, though.”
HCRC noted that the pay to have sex in these films was lucrative for prisoners, most of whom earn nothing at jobs they are required to perform while incarcerated. They also risk backlash from other prisoners; some porn performers have been stabbed, beaten or “tied in cells” when their faces were inadvertently exposed to the camera while having sex with one another.
The advocacy group corroborated the $20 subscription price, too, naming OnlyFans, LoyalFans and Twitter as sites where the films can be found. Yet despite twice alerting the DOC in 2023 to the potential violations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA)—42 U.S.C. ch. 147 § 1560,1 et seq.—nothing had been done, HCRC said.
As Iakovos noted, the production process involves surmounting logistical barriers—getting a cellphone video camera and a wifi hotspot to enable uploading the finished product, as well as lining up performers and contracting with a prison gang to provide security. It is also a flagrant violation of prison rules that prohibit any sexual activity by prisoners, even masturbation. Getting caught having sex and making money off it could send “P” and his cast to solitary confinement in “the hole.”
The result is a furtive business in which topics like condoms and workplace safety “aren’t exactly part of the discussion,” Iakovos noted, adding: “Consent is barely part of the discussion here.” HCRC accused the DOC of gaslighting state taxpayers by refusing to address the problem.
Sources: Filter Mag, Human & Civil Rights Coalition of Georgia
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