April
29, 2003, 10:00 a.m.
The Most-Silent Crime
Prison rape
gets a hearing.
By Eli Lehrer
fter far too long a delay, Congress may finally face America's most-ignored
crime problem. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, earlier this month reintroduced
a bill to reduce the massive prison-rape crisis that touches nearly all
of the 1.8 million Americans living behind bars. This year's first hearings
on the bill will take place Tuesday.
Any compassionate
person should feel revulsion at the extent of prison rape. The activist
group Stop Prisoner Rape estimates that about 240,000 men get raped behind
bars each year. By comparison, 2002 saw about 90,000 male-on-female rapes
reported to the police in the entire country. Jail house rape victims are
often pre-trial detainees or petty criminals: Quite often small, weak, or
effeminate men. Given that AIDS infection rates in prison populations stand
at almost ten times the levels outside, the prison rape crisis means that
an arrest for a minor crime can result in a death sentence. For people in
prison, many of whom suffer from a variety of mental illnesses, a rape can
send them over the edge into more serious criminal behavior. Most men on
death row have a history of sexual abuse.
The bill takes some
sensible middle-ground measures: It asks private accreditation agencies
to set rape-prevention standards, gives states $40 million for rape-prevention
grants, and tells the Department of Justice to begin collecting prison-rape
statistics. It doesn't require states to do anything: States that don't
think they have a prison-rape problem can simply decline to participate.
(Although virtually every state does.) In fact, because it doesn't establish
new rights to sue, the ACLU and some other left-wing activist groups haven't
put their lobbying muscle behind it, instead arguing for the repeal of
laws that limit prisoners' access to the courts. The prison-rape crisis,
however, developed while prisoners could file taxpayer subsided lawsuits
when they got the wrong kind of peanut butter from the commissary. Even
if it is a good idea to expand prisoner's legal right, it would do little
to solve the prison-rape crisis.
The bill, called
the Prison Rape Reduction Act, will be money well spent. The total social
costs of a single rape outside of prison run over a half million dollars.
If the bill prevents even 100 rapes — and it will very likely prevent
thousands — it will pay for itself twice. Protecting prisoners from
being raped is just a recognition of their human rights: Not a way of
coddling them. Wolf has long supported prison construction and other tough-on-crime
measures Virginia Democrat Robert Scott, who cosponsors the bill is no
softie either. The only losers will be people who deserve it: negligent
prison administrators who let rapes occur on their watch. (Many of the
worst prisons, in fact, encourage rape as a means of controlling unruly
prisoners.) In fact, the simple fear of being called to Washington to
answer questions about a higher-than-average prison-rape rate should get
most prison administrators into line.
In fact, nobody even
bothers to oppose the bill in public. Groups ranging from the NAACP and
Amnesty International to Christian Coalition and Salvation Army have signed
on to support it. And it will pass: Wolf told me last year that he would
attach it to a defense appropriations bill if it didn't appear to be moving
through the congressional committee structure.
It's rare that a
bill so unobjectionable should face so much trouble: Even hot lunch for
orphans could face a reasoned libertarian objection on the basis that
it encourages dependency. But it's difficult to argue against taking action
to prevent rape. What else exactly is the state supposed to do? The Bush
administration, which has not yet taken a public position on the bill,
could win some low-cost political capital by moving front and center to
support it. Minority communities, which have a disproportionate number
of people both serving time and working in the correctional system, will
welcome the bill and voters all over the country will get the message
that the president cares. His base among religious conservatives is also
firmly behind the bill. It's a perfect compliment to his compassionate
conservative agenda and, in its respect for state autonomy, very consistent
with federalist principles. A few words from the president could get it
moving and a Rose Garden signing ceremony would, to say the least, pay
handsome political and moral dividends.
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fter far too long a delay, Congress may finally face America's most-ignored
crime problem. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, earlier this month reintroduced
a bill to reduce the massive prison-rape crisis that touches nearly all
of the 1.8 million Americans living behind bars. This year's first hearings
on the bill will take place Tuesday.
