XPost: alt.society.homeless, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: X@Y.com   
      
   Why We Let Prison Rape Go On   
      
      
   ORANGE, Conn. — IT’S been called “America’s most ‘open’ secret”: According   
   to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, around 80,000 women and men a year are   
   sexually abused in American correctional facilities. That number is almost   
   certainly subject to underreporting, through shame or a victim’s fear of   
   retaliation. Overall, only 35 percent of rapes and sexual assaults were   
   reported to the police in 2010, and the rate of reporting in prisons is   
   undoubtedly lower still.   
      
   To tackle the problem, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act,   
   signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003. The way to eliminate   
   sexual assault, lawmakers determined, was to make Department of Justice   
   funding for correctional facilities conditional on states’ adoption of   
   zero-tolerance policies toward sexual abuse of inmates.   
      
   Inmates would be screened to identify possible predators and victims.   
   Prison procedures would ensure investigation of complaints by outside law   
   enforcement. Correctional officers would be instructed about behavior that   
   constitutes sexual abuse. And abusers, whether inmates or guards, would be   
   punished effectively.   
      
   But only two states — New Hampshire and New Jersey — have fully complied   
   with the act. Forty-seven states and territories have promised that they   
   will do so. Using Justice Department data, the American Civil Liberties   
   Union estimated that from 2003 to 2012, when the law’s standards were   
   finalized, nearly two million inmates were sexually assaulted.   
      
      
   Six Republican governors have neglected or refused to comply, complaining   
   of cost and other factors. Rick Perry, then the governor of Texas, wrote to   
   the Justice Department last year stating that 40 percent of the   
   correctional officers in male facilities in Texas were women, so that   
   “cross-gender viewing” (like witnessing inmates in the shower, which   
   contravenes the legal guidelines) could not be avoided. The mandated   
   measures, he said, would levy “an unacceptable cost” on Texas, which has   
   one of the highest rates of prison sexual assault.   
      
   For its noncompliance, Texas is likely to lose just 5 percent of federal   
   funding for its state prisons, or about $800,000. It will still receive   
   $15.2 million in federal grants even as inmates continue to be sexually   
   assaulted. If Congress passes an amendment that Senator John Cornyn,   
   Republican of Texas, proposed last year, the financial penalty for   
   noncompliance will be removed altogether.   
      
   Ultimately, prisons protect rape culture to protect themselves. According   
   to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about half of prison sexual assault   
   complaints in 2011 were filed against staff. (These reports weren’t all   
   claims of forcible rape; it is considered statutory sexual assault for a   
   guard to have sexual contact with an inmate.)   
   Image   
   Credit...Ben Jones   
      
   I was an inmate for six years in Connecticut after being convicted of   
   identity fraud, among other charges. From what I saw, the same small group   
   of guards preyed on inmates again and again, yet never faced discipline.   
   They were protected by prison guard unions, one of the strongest forces in   
   American labor.   
      
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   Sexualized violence is often used as a tool to subdue inmates whom guards   
   see as upstarts. In May 2008, while in a restricted housing unit, or “the   
   SHU” as it is commonly known, I was sexually assaulted by a guard. The   
   first person I reported the incident to, another guard, ignored it. I   
   finally reached a nurse who reported it to a senior officer.   
      
   When the state police arrived, I decided not to talk to them because the   
   harassment I’d received in the intervening hours made me fearful. For the   
   same reason, I refused medical treatment when I was taken to a local   
   emergency room.   
      
   Subsequent interviews with officials at the prison amounted to hazing and   
   harassment. They accused me of having been a drug user, which was untrue,   
   and of lying about going to college, though it was true I had. The   
   “investigation,” which I found more traumatic than the assault, dragged on   
   for more than two months until they determined that my allegation couldn’t   
   be substantiated. The law’s guidelines were followed, but in letter not in   
   spirit.   
      
   I was also a witness in a case in which an inmate claimed to have been   
   sexually assaulted by a guard and then told me she’d made it up. I reported   
   her — and this time, I was perfectly credible to an investigator, who   
   praised me for having a conscience and a clear head.   
      
   The Justice Department estimates that the total bill to society for prison   
   rape and sexual abuse is as high as $51.9 billion per year, including the   
   costs of victims’ compensation and increased recidivism. If states refuse   
   to implement the law when the fiscal benefit is so obvious, something   
   larger is at stake.   
      
      
   According to Allen Beck, senior statistical adviser at the Bureau of   
   Justice Statistics, “institutional culture and facility leadership may be   
   key factors in determining the level of victimization.” Rape persists, in   
   other words, because it’s the cultural wallpaper of American correctional   
   facilities. We preserve the abuse because we’re down with perps getting   
   punished in the worst ways.   
      
   Compliance does not even cost that much. The Justice Department estimates   
   that full nationwide compliance would cost $468.5 million per year, through   
   2026. Even that much is less than 1 percent of states’ spending on   
   corrections. Putting aside the cruelty and pain inflicted, prison rape   
   costs far more than the implementation of the law designed to stop it.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)