April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and one place we need to be especially aware of sexual assault is behind bars.
Every year, more than 100,000 men, women and children are victimized while behind bars, usually by corrections officials whose very job it is to keep them safe. The U.S. Attorney General is currently reviewing national standards aimed at preventing and addressing this type of abuse. Until May 10, these measures are open for public comments.
If fully implemented, the national standards will spare countless Americans the horror of sexual abuse. But the standards are under threat. The reason: Prison officials claim that it will be too expensive to implement them - too expensive to prevent staff from raping detainees.
Sexual assault anywhere is devastating, physically and emotionally. When such abuse happens in prison, victims face extreme challenges.
Incarcerated rape survivors tend to suffer in silence and are forced to remain in regular contact with their assailants. And prisoners have no access to rape crisis counseling in the aftermath of an attack.
In 2003, Congress recognized that the victimization of inmates constitutes a national crisis and so it unanimously passed the U.S. Prison Rape Elimination Act.
The national standards currently under review by Attorney General Eric Holder were developed by a bipartisan federal commission through extensive consultation with corrections officials, criminal justice experts, advocates and prisoner rape survivors. They are basic, common-sense measures, highlighting the need to train staff, identify likely rape victims and likely predators and ensure that prisons are subjected to independent audits.
By law, Attorney General Eric Holder has until June to review the standards and codify them as federal regulations, making them binding on detention facilities nationwide.
Sadly, it now looks like Holder will not meet his deadline. The delay is due, in large part, to a problematic cost projection study commissioned by the Justice Department in response to pressure from corrections leaders.
The moral case for these federal regulations is unassailable. But there is also a strong financial case since the standards would help eliminate sexual abuse that, in the past few years alone, has resulted in litigation costing corrections systems many millions of dollars in damages.
Contrary to what some critics say, the standards do not require substantial financial outlays. Corrections departments that already have started implementing the standards have been able to do so without increasing their spending. The experiences of these agencies refute the arguments of corrections officials who speculate that the standards will have a hefty price tag.
On April 1, President Obama issued a proclamation. "During National Sexual Assault Awareness Month," he wrote, "we recommit ourselves not only to lifting the veil of secrecy and shame surrounding sexual violence, but also to raising awareness, expanding support for victims and strengthening our response."
He has a historic opportunity to expand our support for victims behind bars. Please urge him, and Attorney General Holder, to do so right away.
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David Chura: Jails' Racism Gets Worse -- But Who Really Cares?
Most people take comfort in the popular myth of American justice--that only the guilty get arrested, charged, and incarcerated. It's obvious: more blacks than whites are arrested and put in jail because they commit more crimes.
Now we see that it is an entrenched practice and there is nothing new to bringing it from the prison yard in America to another in Iraq...
Until American's learn to respect life and deal with social problems in a humane and effective way rather than an emotional and medieval manner.
You can't lock up a bunch of offenders in an overcrowded situation and allow staff to prey upon them and demand that the rest of the world respect human rights...
Definitely a pox on all rights violator's houses.
If an inmate destroys a camera, there should be a video record of who did it, and disciplinary action taken.
You lost me right there and it went downhill fast. I loose track of what we are supposed to be recognizing this month. Isn't this also National Flower Month, Firefighters Month, Some kind of disease we're all supposed to feel bad about month and Cute Snail month? Its all rather childish. Can't we pay attention for more than a MONTH?
Also if you are honoring the theme shouldn't we start with the the Catholic Church and its sexual abuse of children? Neither they nor rape victims outside of the prison system get even a nod from this article.
Prison rape like any rape is intolerable. However shouldn't we be advocating for a reform of the whole American Gulag system? Prison rape is a symptom it is not a stand alone problem and wondering about the need for Rape Crisis Counciling in a Prison is like standing around a burning building asking if we should consider buying a broom to clean up the mess.
Foolish article, poor thinking and not worthy of publication.
Go talk to you dog about Kant or Ptolemy. Same result, with 1/10th the frustration.
You lost me right there and it went downhill fast. I loose track of what we are supposed to be recognizing this month. Isn't this also National Flower Month, Firefighters Month, Some kind of disease we're all supposed to feel bad about month and Cute Snail month? Its all rather childish. Can't we pay attention for more than a MONTH?
Also if you are honoring the theme shouldn't we start with the the Catholic Church and its sexual abuse of children? Neither they nor rape victims outside of the prison system get even a nod from this article.
Prison rape like any rape is intolerable. However shouldn't we be advocating for a reform of the whole American Gulag system? Prison rape is a symptom it is not a stand alone problem and wondering about the need for Rape Crisis Counciling in a Prison is like standing around a burning building asking if we should consider buying a broom to clean up the mess.
Foolish article, poor thinking and not worthy of publication.
There is a concept in statistics related to population baselines and error rates.
So if 1 in 1,000,000 people have a disease and you have a test that has a 95% accuracy at testing for it, you are correct to assume even if the test comes back positive for you the real results are negative.
The same is the case here. If there are 10 times more cases of prisoner on prisoner sexual assault verses keeper / official on prisoner assult. But there are 20 inmates per employe and maybe 80 inmates per "floor guard" (ones with greatest contact) than actually the VAST rate of offense is on that of the keepers.
Furthermore, since rape is about POWER... It stands to reason that the power difference inherent in keeper on convict rape is a worse impact and offence.
Now having said all that... Who cares? Are you trying to "defend the keepers?" How about agreeing no matter who is doing the raping it's a financial obligation of a state that decides to collectively incarcerate it's residents to keep them safe ... more or less ... a all reasonable costs?
Putting people through the nightmare monster factory that is the US prison system is in nobody's best interest. Many of them come out unable to hold a job or relate to people very well. My buddy was a great guy, and still is, but for a long time, he just couldn't handle normal anymore.
Considering that the US has a super high prison population per capita, it also seems that it isn't much of a deterrent either.
Most enter the corrections system with the problems listed above.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Prisoner_population_rate_UN_HDR_2007_2008.PNG
He was a normal guy going in. The difference was pretty dramatic.
I've worked in a correctional facility and NEVER seen an act of sexual assault committed by a staff member. I've heard accusations, but all were proven untrue by video evidence.
The biggest issue is the impact. And the power of a keeper over the convict is so great, that even if it was "less frequent" is it more impacting.
Regarding the 'difference' between accusations of keeper violence vrs "actual" keeper violence. I would suspect like all sexual assult, the facts are UNDER REPORTED. And further, do you really think the fraternaty of keepers will police themselves? Do you know how "despised" Internal Affiairs is in the non-correctional side of the law?
I didn't become an LEO because of economic disadvantage or to participate in a "class war", but wanted a job where I could serve the public and have some sense of job satisfaction at the end of the day.
I understand it happens. I'm just saying I absolutely cannot grasp the concept. In fact, I just gave myself a stress head-ache.
I should have been born a squirrel.
It amazes me that any society that considers itself civilized and just can allow these atrocities to happen.
Even the worst of society, who we have collectively deemed dangerous and removed from our presence, are still under the protection of our justice system.
Those who start out in life being abused are much more likely to end up in prison, and those who have been victims are more likely to make victims of others.
Also, we haven't touched on the point that our prisons are also housing many of the mentally ill now. Since we don't have public mental facilities to care for them, they are often warehoused with criminals.