Evangelicals Call For Prison-Rape Reforms

By Ankita Rao
Religion News Service

(RNS) Evangelicals are calling on the Obama administration to enact long-promised prison reforms, saying the incarcerated deserve protection from violence and rape.

In 2003, former president George W. Bush signed the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which aimed to lower the estimated 13 percent of inmates sexually assaulted each year.

The bill called for the Department of Justice to research prison rape and requires prisons to establish prevention programs.

Now, the National Association of Evangelicals is urging the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission to follow up on the standards proposed.

NAE President Leith Anderson and Director of Government Affairs Galen Carey wrote on May 10 to Attorney General Eric Holder that "those behind bars deserve the same protections against violence as those on the outside."

The NAE pushed for the rape commission to adopt the standards from the 2003 act regardless of the government's tight budget, suggesting that the reforms will reduce recidivism and lead to cost savings.

In 2003, the bill drew support from varied religious and advocacy groups including the Southern Baptist Convention, the Christian Coalition of America, the NAACP and Human Rights Watch.

Like the NAE, the Human Rights Watch's Jamie Fellner reaffirmed the organization's stance in a Jan. 5 letter to Attorney General Holder--saying that "tens of thousands of adults and juveniles are still sexually abused each year because officials have not instituted basic measures to protect them."

According to the Department of Justice Web site, Holder appointed members to the review panel on Jan. 1 in order to assist the Bureau of Justice Statistics in identifying common characteristics of prison systems and prisoners involved in prison rape.

Comments

[johnsoncon]

12:38 AM on 05/28/2010

we need to address the racial factor involved in many of these rapes. The majority are vicious HATE CRIMES against white inmates who are usually outnumbered and have less gangs to join, etc.

[HarmNone]

08:01 PM on 05/21/2010

I find it amusing that the priests are asking for prison reform when it was the religious leaders of eras past who set the tone for how prisoners are treated. Religious jails and dungeons treated their prisoners abominably, stripping away every shred of human dignity and torturing people until they uttered was was required of them to say. Yes, we should have prison reform, but for humanity's sake not because the religious order is asking for it.

[elsie900]

09:07 PM on 06/28/2010

Not the same people. Evangelicals don't have priests or religious orders, and have not had their own jails or dungeons. You are thinking of someone else. I'm not an Evangelical myself, I'm just sayin.'

[Blixa]

04:50 AM on 05/21/2010

One very efficient way to tackle the challenge of understaffed, underfunded prison systems (which make prison rape more likely) is to look at the causes of prison overcrowding. Our prisons have swelled to bursting with our law-n-order, lock em up and throw away the key approach. And of course a good percentage of our prisoners are in for drug offenses. Are the evangelicals prepared to take a good, honest look at root causes, and be honest in realizing that the War on Drugs is a failure? It's easy to come out against rape; it's much harder to tackle the causes.

[ThankGodhesgone]

10:58 PM on 05/20/2010

THat's because more and more of them are heading to jail. They want to keep their manholes intact.

[Dwells75]

11:50 AM on 05/21/2010

And we all know the most despised people in prison, despised universally by the rest of the population, are child molesters.

[nexxtep54]

06:42 PM on 05/20/2010

I've never heard a preacher speak against bestiality. Everything else, but never that.
Why is that.

[Hysterian68]

06:11 PM on 05/20/2010

Evangelical protestants and their blood brothers ,the Catholic hierarchy, must be feeling the heat of prosecution and a the likelihood of jail for themselves. For many, the jail doors are going to be closing on them and they realize they could easily be made into some inmate's little boy friend.

[Aardvaark]

03:28 PM on 05/20/2010

I don't often agree with Evangelicals.
I disagree on their stands on sex, premarital sex, birth control, abortion, separation of church and state, and homosexuality, among many things.

This is one time when I agree with them.

There's no need to get snarky over all the other stuff they've tried to push down our throats when this is, I believe, a genuine effort on their part.

My fundamentalist minister father, when he was in the U.S., often ministered to inmates. I don't agree with what he was preaching, but for people in jail, the human contact is often something important. We've turned jails into cesspools and breeding grounds for more aberrant behavior. It's time to put a stop to it.

[elsie900]

09:10 PM on 06/28/2010

My sentiments exactly. I'm very familiar with that community, and though I disagree with almost all their social positions, I do concede that they succeed at prison ministries (in which they specialize) to a degree that others could learn from. They follow up, too, helping the prisoners get jobs or training when they get out.

[hjsung]

03:01 PM on 05/20/2010

protect the unborn, protect the prisoners, but stomp on women and gays. i love evangelical logic

[Aardvaark]

03:32 PM on 05/20/2010

Religion, in my view, is logical only in its internal consistency. From the outside of a group of beliefs, there are many inconsistencies. As humans, we are often illogical.

As I have said before, I disagree with many of their stands.

Let's encourage them when they can do something positive.

[hjsung]

03:00 PM on 05/20/2010

sure, making laws in prison prevents rape. if that worked in the first place, there will be no prisoners and there will be no prison rape. if you really care about prisoners rights, get rid of death penalty, duh.

[Angel1999]

08:19 PM on 05/20/2010

The problem with Western legal philosophy is that it presupposes that people can be made to behave better than people have ever behaved. Rape is already a crime. One wonders how passing more laws against specific types of rape is going to make any difference.

[pointy]

02:47 PM on 05/20/2010

lots of repugs and wall street financiers getting ready to go to jail as their corrupt world unravels. Evangelicals who've always had their support are now helping them to make their future prison terms a little more comfortable.

[AdorableHero]

01:35 PM on 05/20/2010

It's kind of amusing to see the people getting up in arms over this because of the "Evangelicals" being involved. I think the only reason why "Evangelicals" was a headline here was because HuffPo needed a nice little snippet for the Religion page.

Either that, or they just wanted to see what would happen if they posted something an Evangelical group is doing that everyone can agree is actually *good* - see what happens when you show members this group being humans and doing something human.

*Rolls eyes* Surprise, surprise, people *still* complain.

Then again, prison inmates aren't exactly seen as human or "capable of any good," either. Hits home for me because I had a relative in prison for a while. The prisons are glutted with people who did things because of untreated mental illness and non-violent drug offenders. My relative used to tell me that the guards, all the time, would say "We do the same things, but we were smart enough not to get caught." In any case, no one *deserves* rape - and even if you think somene does it speaks to your own dishonor to wish it on anyone.

[hagagaga]

12:30 PM on 05/20/2010

This is a first...they want to protect prisoners. Where are they when prisoners are murdered by the state governments? Oh...right, they're cheering the government on.

[Hysterian68]

06:14 PM on 05/20/2010

Yes, and too bad evangelicals and their allies the GOP aren't together calling for reforms. I'll believe they're in earnest when the Republifascists join them.

[MadMaddie]

11:54 AM on 05/20/2010

While I also agree that criminals deserve protection from rape while incarcerated, how come the Evangelicals have zero qualms about forcing females to have a child after being raped?
Oh that's right... that is just part and parcel of their hypocrisy.

[glockman]

11:12 AM on 05/20/2010

The root of the problem lies in the perspective and attitude that most of our society have towards criminals. Usually theses perceptions are completely false and unfounded.

I often hear people say (including many I work with) that these criminals are getting what they deserve. How on earth can someone rationalize the sexual battery of an individual serving a prison sentence for a property crime? Or a drug offense (another debate altogether)? The answer is, it can't be done. Even violent criminals should be shielded from prison rape.

Our justice system is supposed to be built on just that, justice. Offering and supporting the view that prison rape is justice is an extremely warped sense of the word.

Do we need to incarcerate violent people who commit crimes against others? No question. But once we remove their rights we have an obligation to maintain humane control over them. Removal of the freedom to move is terrible in itself. No, I'm not saying we should coddle criminals, but we shouldn't expose them to crime in what is supposed to be an environment where we are providing punishment and rehabilitation.

[onwisconsin]

11:45 AM on 05/20/2010

Well put. Fanned.

[StJames]

12:23 PM on 05/20/2010

I don't know my friend...you are sounding just like a bleeding heart liberal! LOL

The measure of a society's justice is the manner in which they maintain their prisons...I don't think we are a truly just society.

[glockman]

07:37 AM on 05/21/2010

I don't know that I'm a bleeding heart liberal :)

I believe in punishment. Prison should be an uncomfortable place. But that doesn't change the fact that we, as a society, through our justice system, have removed the rights of those committing crimes. So when we do that, we also take on the responsibility of administering that removal of rights properly. We can't simply stick people in prison and let them "have at it," so to speak.

I think you know my philosophy well enough. I have no sympathy for child rapists and murderers, etc., but that doesn't mean we shouldn't act responsibly when we imprison them.

[SchmataHari]

11:07 AM on 05/20/2010

What we have here is a "penal" problem. In some states, same gender sex is illegal between consulting adults. The solution? Put these people behind bars? Then some guards look the other way when rape occurs. We should fix the laws outside AND inside, and outside the walls of our correctional institutions. Rape should be a crime everywhere.