August 14, 2007 | Sex & Society

The case of the masturbating prisoner

The fact that a prisoner can be charged with indecent exposure for masturbating in his own jail cell seems a little odd. But it happened in Florida to inmate Terry Alexander, 20, who was convicted of the misdemeamour after a jury took 45 minutes to consider his crime. The punishment: 60 days in the county jail for jerking off. Lucky for Terry, he is already serving 10 years for armed robbery, so it won't make much difference to him.

But the Sheriff's office actually encourages guards -- who can watch prisoners from a central monitoring room on closed circuit TV -- to bring charges against masturbating criminals, in hopes of discouraging the men from pleasuring themselves. We're sure it's because of the stains on the white sheets!

"I think the government's gone awry," Terry's lawyer said. "Has it been a slow year in crime that they've got to go prosecute masturbation in the Broward County Jail?"