The shame of our prisons

TownHall.com ^ | Friday, May 9, 2003 | Rich Lowry

[JohnHuang2]

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The shame of our prisons
Rich Lowry (back to web version)

May 9, 2003

When is rape a joke? When it takes place behind bars, and it is men brutalizing other men.

Our tolerance for prison rape, considered a subject fit for late-night TV humor, is a great mystery. We profess to abhor rape, to adore personal dignity, to uphold the rights of the downtrodden -- yet we sentence tens of thousands of men every year to the most bestial kind of abuse, without a second thought beyond the occasional chuckle.

The silence surrounding this national shame has been broken by a right-left coalition in Washington that is pushing federal prison-rape legislation, likely to pass and be signed into law this year. It will be a first step to alleviating the problem, if not the end of the vile jokes.

An often-cited estimate is that 22 percent to 25 percent of prisoners a year experience sexual pressuring, attempted sexual assault or completed rapes, while one in 10 of the nation's 2 million prisoners suffer a completed rape. Given the gaps in reporting, most experts consider these numbers conservative.

The victims are typically the young, the weak, gays, previous rape victims, the outcasts and the mentally ill (this last category is particularly appalling considering that there are more mentally ill people in prison than in psychiatric hospitals). Rape can be a tool other inmates use against convicted rapists and child molesters, but often victims are pretrial detainees serving short-time or convicted on nonviolent offenses.

They are simply those who can't defend themselves. Rape is a body- and life-shattering experience. Victims are often infected with HIV or other diseases, and are prone to more anti-social behavior after they leave prison than when they entered.

After an assault, a victim's choices are usually to try to continue resisting and suffer the resulting beatings, or to become the sexual slave of another stronger inmate for protection. Another option is suicide.

Think about it: This is your tax dollars at work.

Christian right groups like Prison Fellowship Ministries and the Southern Baptist Convention have formed a wide-ranging coalition to address the problem with groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and Amnesty International. Michael Horowitz of the Hudson Institute points out that Christian conservatives have become the driving force behind human-rights legislation in recent years, allying with the left to pass bills on religious persecution overseas, sex trafficking, AIDS in Africa and now prison rape.

Virginia Republican Rep. Frank Wolf, who finds himself aligned with Sen. Ted Kennedy on the prison-rape bill, is typical of conservative supporters. In explaining his advocacy, he cites the Gospel, Matthew from chapter 25 ("I was in prison and you visited me ..."), as well as gut-level abhorrence at the unbearable stories from prisons.

The bill is mild. It requires that the Justice Department gather statistics on rape, and that prison officials from states where the incidence of rape significantly exceeds the national average explain themselves in Washington. It creates a National Prison Rape Reduction Commission, the recommendations of which the attorney general is free to reject or accept.

The bill seems impossible to oppose, but that hasn't stopped elements of the Bush Justice Department from resisting. They worry that the bill trespasses on federalism principles, even though the Supreme Court has held that deliberate indifference to rape violates the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

"John Ashcroft is for it -- I've spoken to him," says Wolf. "But I've had low-level, behind-the-scenes opposition from Justice. We would have passed the bill last year if it hadn't been for some people in the Justice Department."

One can only imagine that President Bush, who has spoken movingly of the imperative to show compassion toward prisoners and their families, would be ashamed if he knew that lawyers in his administration were obstructing such a bill.

The 19th-century novelist Feodor Dostoevski, a political prisoner in Russia for four years, wrote: "The degree to which a society is civilized can be judged by entering its prisons." No wonder we want to avert our eyes from ours.

On Another Note: In my airline CEO column, I said that AirTran is losing money. Actually, it has posted profits in four consecutive quarters. I regret the error.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review, a TownHall.com member group.

©2003 King Features Syndicate

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[JohnHuang2]

Friday, May 9, 2003

Quote of the Day by goldstategop

[ARepublicanForAllReasons]

Bump!

[tal hajus]

You mean that prison is such a terrible, horrible place that I should have to obey the law to stay out of it?? Oh the horror!!!

[an amused spectator]

"But I've had low-level, behind-the-scenes opposition from Justice. We would have passed the bill last year if it hadn't been for some people in the Justice Department."

I'd bet money that the "low-level opposition" is liberal Clintonite bureaucrat "Justice" holdovers.

Only a Democrat National Socialist could outdo his German National Socialist forebears in the torture of prisoners.

I don't recall too many stories of the Nazis allowing and/or encouraging the strong prisoners to rape the weak prisoners in the concentration camps. Beatings, yes - but this degradation, no.

[an amused spectator]

You mean that prison is such a terrible, horrible place that I should have to obey the law to stay out of it?? Oh the horror!!!

As I told some other nitwit a while ago, allow the authorities to surveil you 24/7, 365 for a few years. They will find a felony and/or numerous misdemeanors. The lawnuts have made sure of that.

Get off your high horse, tal hajus.

[scab4faa]

While I do agree that yes going to jail should not be a vacation, an ex-girlfriend of mine's brother was sent to jail after being pulled over and finding a small bag of weed on him. His parents decided to teach him a lesson and make him stay in jail over the weekend by not posting bail for him. He was raped while in there and died a year later from AIDS. Pretty small offense to to lose your life for...

[Pan_Yans Wife]

If rape is already illegal, how does this legislation propose to make it MORE illegal? It reminds me of hate crime laws.

[Taliesan]

No civilized people will tolerate epidemic anal rape of prisoners. This is not a political issue. This is a human rights issue.

[Core_Conservative]

Thought Process - Rape is not legal. Rape in prison is not legal either. what are we supposed to do - create a seperate prison system for those that rape others? Are we supposed to physically castrate those that rape other prisoners? - I'm at a loss for a solution to the problem. Most of this is going on in a prison - (Isn't a prison a place for people convicted of a crime?) - do we just keep them in jail longer to "prey" on other "helpless" criminals? (God my brain hurts)

[L,TOWM]

Thank you for posting this John.

Ping for you Kim.

[L,TOWM]

Do you have hopes that when some one goes to prison (or even a county lock up) that they will come out, determined to play by the rules and never go back?

[SamAdams76]

That is a rather sanctimonious reply. Many law-abiding citizens find themselves caught up in the machinery of our justice system. It could be a false allegation of sexual abuse. Or a case of mistaken identity. Or maybe some teenager across from you planted marijuana in the corner of your yard without your knowledge. Maybe your house or business was being robbed and you used lethal force to defend your property. Yeah, people go to jail for that too. There are any number of ways that good citizens can end up behind bars - should they be raped too? Sometimes it is just a once-in-a-lifetime mistake. Maybe you were involved in a tragic car accident and got convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Or maybe you did something stupid in the heat of passion. Like that girl who was convicted of running her cheating husband over in Texas. Now I'm not arguing that she shouldn't be in prison - but should she be raped repeatedly as well?

Even hardened criminals should not be exposed to rape in prison. This is not the kind of society we are. Rape in prison should not be tolerated. Any inmate engaging in prison rape, in my opinion, should be locked in a cell 24/7 for the duration of his sentence (which should be automatically extended as a result).

[NCLaw441]

I do NOT condone rape, whether of women or men, in prison or not. However, it is a pretty poorly kept secret that this occurs in jails and prisons nationwide. If obeying the law for its own sake is not sufficient to convince us to abide by the law, surely the risk of the torture that the man you describe suffered IS sufficient for most of us. I applaud efforts to end this mistreatment in prison, but prison is really pretty easy to avoid. Just don't commit crimes. This is my primary response to death penalty foes and AIDS advocates as well. The consequences are avoidable, just don't commit the acts that result in these consequences. I hope that does not come across as hard-hearted.

[L,TOWM]

The solution to this problem depends on how well the reformers can get Federal and State authorities to do three things that rarely happen in our system.

1) Change the "that's the way we do it" mindset.

2) SOME (not huge, but some) funding increases on a non voting population.

3) Overcoming an entrenched and powerful political group with a contrary agenda (prison guard unions).

[L,TOWM]

And I will ask you the same question I asked tal in post 11.

[jimt]

No civilized people will tolerate epidemic anal rape of prisoners. This is not a political issue. This is a human rights issue.

I'll echo Taliesan's reply.

People who think otherwise need a massage - with Mr. Spaulding.

[an amused spectator]

Just don't commit crimes.

You do realize how many crimes that the lawnuts have got on the books out there, don't you?

The legislatures pass all these laws for the same reason that the IRS tax code is incomprehensible - so that if the authorities need to "get you", they can.

I think one of my favorite recent examples is that Michigan case where the 14-year-old girl ran away with the older guy who was a criminal in his past life.

They couldn't get him on anything else, so they charged him with a "child endangerment" felony. What the eff is that?

You can just see the authorities going down the list of things they couldn't charge him for, faces getting glummer and glummer, until one of the junior DAs sez: "Hey! child endangerment, yeah, that's it, that's the ticket!"

[NCLaw441]

You have a problem with finding a way to convict a guy who took off with a 14 year old girl? Sorry, we don't connect on that.

[an amused spectator]

Swing and a miss. Steeerike one!

[Billy_bob_bob]

There are new prison designs that greatly reduce the possibility of prison rape. The basic floorplan involves a central command center that can see 360 degrees around the inside of the prison. Every cell, every corrodor, every shower can be seen from the command center, and there are a number of people and cameras all operating at once.

Nothing is going to be "ignored" because there are too many people who can see anything going on. As a result even consensual sex is greatly reduced, and rape becomes extremely rare.

A good thing, because if prison rape becomes much worse what is to keep the average offender from deciding they would rather die from a bullet than from being raped and given AIDS? At that point they'll shoot anyone they feel like shooting, since they will believe they have nothing to lose. Not a good situation for the average policeman to have to deal with.