“It’s just like being victimized all over again.”- Previously kidnapped, Lisa Gesik talking about inmates having access to social networking sites while in jail.
Victims of violent crimes could always count on reliving their terrible experiences at least a second time, that is, if the perpetrators were ever caught and brought to trial.
Facebook, along with the latest cell phone technology, has enabled incarcerated prisoners to reach out and persecute the same people against whom they’ve already committed crimes. In essence, the injured parties are sometimes victimized a third time, when the convicted offender continues harassment from behind bars and then possibly a fourth when the attacker is eventually released.
In the wrong hands
The domestic population serving time behind bars has civil rights which may or may not include access to the Internet. In the wrong hands, a powerful communication platform like Facebook can become a tool of terror. Just ask Lisa Gesik whose story appeared in an Associated Press piece written by Don Thompson, “Inmates harass victims via Facebook:”
“SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Lisa Gesik hesitates to log into her Facebook account nowadays because of unwanted ‘friend’ requests, not from long-ago classmates but from the ex-husband now in prison for kidnapping her and her daughter.”
Although the whereabouts of the people behind the deceitful use of social networking sites in penitentiaries is known at all times, amazingly enough, pinning a threatening online act down to one individual is apparently not easy. According to Thompson’s article:
“Neither Gesik nor prison officials can prove her ex-husband is sending her the messages, which feature photos of him wearing his prison blues and dark sunglasses, arms crossed as he poses in front of a prison gate.”
Initially Gesik, now residing in Oregon, had Facebook remove the threatening account only to have a similar one pop up with a slightly different spelling. The cyber stalking has continued. Gesik is not the only one.
The same AP item reports that Sacramento widow, Karen Carrisosa, was horrified when she found her husband’s murderer, incarcerated for involuntary manslaughter, had been posting the family’s photos on Facebook.
Said Carrisosa, “My kids, they go on Facebook, I go on Facebook and what if they decide to look us up?”
What happens when they get out?
There’s a good chance most violent criminals, at least the ones doing time for anything less than murder one charges, at some point will be returned to the streets.
If this troublesome population can perpetrate abuse upon their victims after conviction and while still in custody, what will happen when they are out having free access to social networking sites?
Threats previously delivered by way of the mail or ordinary telephone calls have evolved into online menacing techniques that bring contemporary aggressions current in a most insidious way.
The law has not yet caught up to jailbird know-how
The problem is not always access to the Internet. In lockup, cell phones are big business, so much so, that some states, including California, have enacted laws and penalties against bringing the devices into jail. Smartphones, including Blackberries, pose a particular hazard.
Smartphones, in their simplest definition, are wireless telephones with special computer enabled capabilities which allows connection to Facebook and other similar sites, particularly dangerous as a convict’s possession.
When it comes to crime and punishment, the Internet has created a paradox. In a weird way, with the use of social networking sites, criminal offenders of violent crimes have flipped the equation of justice which is supposed to protect society from further victimization. Jailed attackers have been able to create prisons around their victims by means of electronic walls of intimidation.
So far, the answer to the situation has been the legislation of laws; however, rules probably won’t change most inmates’ behaviors. The only safe alternative for victims is to run and hide.