Opinion ID: 449695
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Homosexual Predation Justification

Text: 17 The Commonwealth maintains that Directive 807 promotes institutional security by reducing the incidence of assaults on other prisoners by predatory homosexuals and by generally reducing the security problems alleged to result from prison homosexuality. The Commonwealth's experts testified to a belief that a correlation exists between security problems resulting from prison homosexuality and long hair, and that predatory homosexuals are more likely to attack or become involved in a fight over a long-haired inmate than a short-haired one. 6 They also testified that prison officials in other states recognize this problem. 18 The district court found that predatory homosexuals present a serious security problem at state correctional facilities, and that many fights between inmates result from one inmate seeking sexual favors from another. However, while conceding the sincerity of Fulcomer's belief that a correlation exists between homosexuality related security problems and long hair, the court also found Fulcomer's belief unreasonable because the Commonwealth's witnesses could point to no documentary evidence of the claimed correlation.