Hawaii warden: Violent sex films used in “shame therapy”

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Bluesky
• Share on X
• Copy Link

Hawaii Deputy Attorney General Bosko Petricevic told jurors the films were shown to discourage male inmates from committing rape and to teach female inmates how to lower the risks of becoming victims.

'IF YOU HEAR THE SIREN SOUND, GET TO SHELTER'

Teen storm chaser brings mobile tornado siren to Cut Knife area

5h ago

War in Ukraine

Russia and Ukraine exchange attacks, killing and wounding dozens while Zelenskyy calls for more talks

17h ago

Heading north

Experts report a surge in interest among American academics looking to move to Canada

18h ago

Former jail social worker Carolyn Ritchie’s 2014 lawsuit says female inmates complained to her about Wagatsuma forcing them to watch rape videos and to divulge their sexual pasts while being filmed.

“Shame therapy is talking about things that are deep within a person,” Wagatsuma said on the witness stand of a Honolulu federal courtroom. “It’s just talking about their lives, talking about anything that’s bothering them.”

Wagatsuma said he yells and uses profanity during so-called “shame therapy” sessions. Words such as “whore” and “batuna,” a Hawaii slang term for a woman who trades sex for crystal meth, were used in appropriate contexts, he said.

“I don’t yell at them for no reason,” said Wagatsuma, who became acting warden in 1992 and the permanent warden in 1995. “It’s about chastising. It’s a good thing … you want to confront them when they’re wrong.”

No one was forced to talk about anything at daily meetings, Petricevic said.

Wagatsuma said he created the program without any experience or background in psychology but by drawing on his own life experiences. “Before I came into government, I had a really hard life,” he said calling himself a “social misfit.”

Ritchie’s lawsuit also alleges the warden denied women the same work release opportunities as men.

Not all women could participate in a program that allows inmates to work in the community and then return to jail at the end of the day because there weren’t enough female guards to strip-search them when they returned, he said.

Still, he insisted that he provided women and men equal work opportunities by ensuring that eligible female inmates could participate in a less-restrictive program that allowed them to also live in the community.

Wagatsuma’s testimony is scheduled to continue next week.

___

Follow Jennifer Sinco Kelleher at http://www.twitter.com/JenHapa. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/jennifer-sinco-kelleher .

Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, The Associated Press