 |
|
June
20, 2002, 9:35 a.m.
No
Joke
Prison rape
is finally taken seriously.
By Eli Lehrer
|
|
 rison
rape, the only violent sex crime that late-night comedians joke about,
might finally get the attention it deserves thanks to a new bill winding
its way through Congress. The bill, (introduced last week in the house
by Virginia Republican Frank Wolf and the Senate by Ted Kennedy (D., Mass.)
and Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.)) would dedicate the federal government to
studying and mitigating America's most ignored crime problem. A sensible,
well-funded middle-ground effort, the Prison Rape Reduction Act would
set up a commission to study prison rape, devote $60 million to research,
data collection, and prevention, and develop national standards for preventing
the crime. The bill has already drawn support from an impressive spectrum
of political activists: groups ranging from the NAACP and National Council
of La Raza to conservative prison-reform crusader Chuck Colson. It emerges
from a campaign begun by Hudson Institute fellow and human-rights crusader
Michael Horowitz; and it's a good first step.
While some prison
administrators like to minimize the problem, the facts about prison rape
should horrify anyone with compassion. Every day, hundreds of men —
many of them pre-trial detainees or misguided small-time crooks —
get raped behind bars. Prison serial rapists search out "punks"
(rape targets) for daily male-on-male rape. Since 1992, the combination
of effective policing and long sentences for wrongdoers has made the United
States the safest large Western nation. Every violent crime has declined
save one: prison rape.
As a result of a
swelling inmate population — now a shade below 2 million — and
an increasingly chaotic correctional system, prison rape has actually
gotten much worse. According to groups like Stop
Prisoner Rape, over 240,000 men get raped in prison or jail each year.
In the outside world, men rape about 140,000 women. In many cases, prison
rape can literally result in a death sentence. Writing in the journal
AIDS, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers Hazel Dean-Gaitor
and Patricia Fleming find that prisoners have nearly six times the AIDS-infection
rate of the population as a whole.
While some on the
left — most prominently the group Human Rights Watch — have
proposed anti-prison-rape solutions such as expanding prisoners' rights
to sue corrections officials, the new proposal represents a sensible middle-ground
solution. It provides ample funding but doesn't create any new federal
crimes or make it harder to run facilities. By setting standards, encouraging
research, and keeping records, it will hold prison administrators accountable
for their actions when rape spirals out of control behind bars.
More accountability
makes sense. While inmate rapists bear the ultimate responsibility for
their crimes, prison administrators are complicit in the prison-rape epidemic.
A divided inmate population living in fear and is easier for administrators
to manage. Some hugely negligent prisons even encourage rape: Staff at
one California facility sent troublesome inmates to live with a serial
rapist.
America's investment
in incarcerating wrongdoers has made the nation's streets much safer.
But allowing rape to continue unmitigated behind bars represents a serious
black mark on America's human-rights record. While comic movies such as
Norm McDonald's Dirty Work and even
a recent 7 UP commercial have made light comedy out of prison rape,
it's not a joking matter. The mere possibility of being raped represents
a serious form of torture for nearly all inmates and a prison punk's daily
reality is not something that any civilized nation should wish on even
its most wayward citizen.
While prison rape
may never disappear altogether, a strong national commitment to research
and prevention could reduce it significantly. For less than the federal
government spends paying for agribusiness' marking, Congress has a chance
to make a big dent in a serious crime problem. There's no excuse for delay.
|
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
