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Panel on Prison Rape Hears Victims' Chilling Accounts
NY Times ^ | August 20, 2005 | CAROLYN MARSHALL

Posted on 08/20/2005 11:18:38 AM PDT by neverdem

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 19 - T. J. Parsell was a lanky pimple-faced adolescent bent on mischief. So when he found a toy gun one evening in 1978 while wandering home from a high school party, he thought nothing of pointing it at a store clerk and grumbling, "Your money or your life."

He got $50 for what he now calls "a stupid impulsive prank." The incident landed the 17-year-old Parsell in an adult jail, where on his first night, an older inmate spiked his drink with Thorazine and sexually abused and raped him.

"While my friends prepared for our high school prom, I was being gang raped," Mr. Parsell testified on Friday to a Congressional commission investigating prison sexual abuse and rape.

Mr. Parsell, now 45, and a successful software executive who lives on Long Island, was one of six victims of prison rape to relate disturbing accounts with a bipartisan panel of The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission here.

"What they took from me went beyond sex," Mr. Parsell said. "They'd stolen my manhood, my identity and part of my soul."

The panel, which also heard from state and federal legislators, law enforcement and prison officials and mental health experts, has been investigating the prevalence, cause and possible solutions to a problem that many experts say has escalated as the prison system is collapsing. Overcrowding, staff shortages and budget cuts have contributed to an often taboo topic.

"As a society, we have an obligation to protect the people we lock up, even though they have harmed society," the commission chairman, Judge Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court in Washington, said. "Some people say inmates get what they deserve. But they don't think about the overall impact on society."

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: California; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: barbaralee; bush; georgewbush; lee; prisoners; prisonrape; prisons; rape; sexcrimes
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

It is highly unlikely that a prisoner would get the death penalty for killing his rapist. Even in Texas.


141 posted on 08/20/2005 2:20:36 PM PDT by Restorer (Liberalism: the auto-immune disease of societies.)
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To: Prime Choice

" Great. Let's just throw out ALL the laws! Then we won't have any crime! Brilliant!"

Here is your lesson for today.

Go get a dictionary.

Look up the word "some"

Then look up the word "all"

Compare and contrast, then get back to me.


142 posted on 08/20/2005 2:40:19 PM PDT by adam_az (It's the border, stupid!)
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To: PAR35

"The not so young punk is sill trying to make excuses for his criminal acts an minimizing crimes which could have ended in death rather than facing up to responsibility for his acts."

This guy is but one example.

His sentence still wasn't rape, it was prison.

Imagine if a FReeper was put in jail on trumped up gun charges by some liberal DA pending trial, and was anally raped.

Would he "deserve" it more, less, the same?


143 posted on 08/20/2005 2:42:32 PM PDT by adam_az (It's the border, stupid!)
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To: Prime Choice

"Personally, I think all prisoners should be in solitary confinement and only allowed out of the cell when fitted with a shock collar. No TV. No cable. No girlie mags. No working out to be an even greater menace to society when they get released."

That kind of isolation is hell on a person - when they do get out, they are unable to live among other people. It's a pretty common side effect of long term solitary.

It should be possible to have prisons where the prisoners are under constant closed circuit monitoring to prevent rape.


144 posted on 08/20/2005 2:45:10 PM PDT by adam_az (It's the border, stupid!)
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marker


145 posted on 08/20/2005 2:45:52 PM PDT by GretchenM (Hooked on porn and hating it? Visit http://www.theophostic.com .)
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To: HangnJudge

" But I work with drug addicts
I have spent my life working in hospitals
The behavior causes multidimensional injury to self and society
And I cannot accept not resisting the tidal draw of this societal affliction."

Better ban alcohol quick then, huh.


146 posted on 08/20/2005 2:47:19 PM PDT by adam_az (It's the border, stupid!)
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To: ladyjane

there are a lot more innocent people in prison than most people can imagine. I would guess at least 5%, especially given the preesure many unfairly accuseds who are pressured to cop a plea.


147 posted on 08/20/2005 2:47:56 PM PDT by connectthedots
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To: neverdem

He got $50 for what he now calls "a stupid impulsive prank." The incident landed the 17-year-old Parsell in an adult jail, where on his first night, an older inmate spiked his drink with Thorazine and sexually abused and raped him.

Nope, he got much more than the $50.......


148 posted on 08/20/2005 2:48:20 PM PDT by Gaffer
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To: jimbo123

Relevant, timely, and outstanding!


149 posted on 08/20/2005 2:49:55 PM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Gunrunner2
whole situation needed to be put in context--the bad guy was a bad guy, not some innocent prankster.

Have you ever wondered if YOU are a good guy? You do not seem to be.

But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!

They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound.

Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their souls not only honey is lacking.

And when they call themselves "the good and just," forget not, that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but- power!

(Thus Spoke Zarathustra - by Friedrich Nietzsche)

150 posted on 08/20/2005 2:53:11 PM PDT by A. Pole (" There is no other god but Free Market, and Adam Smith is his prophet ! ")
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To: adam_az
Imagine if a FReeper was put in jail on trumped up gun charges

While conditions might vary in New York, in civilized states there is a big difference between jail and prison. In most jails, unless you are being unreasonably hostile to the jailers, you won't be put in a high risk situation. Arrestees are separated from convicts, and low risk from high risk. The risk is actually quite low.

In prison, the risk is going to vary based upon where you get sent.(As a general rule, you will be better off in the federal system than the state, and conditions will vary within each system.)

In any event, as I first stated, I'll show some sympathy for this guy when he takes responsibility for his actions and shows remorse.

As someone else has noted up thread, prison rape is a crime. Whether society can afford the cost of enforcing that law is another issue.

151 posted on 08/20/2005 3:05:16 PM PDT by PAR35
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To: neverdem

Rape: anytime, anywhere, anywho, anyhow should be a capital crime, punishable by death.


152 posted on 08/20/2005 3:14:13 PM PDT by Theophilus (Save Little Democrats, Stop Abortion)
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To: pbrown
Years ago my best friend's older brother had mental problems which were finally diagnosed as schizophrenia. After living on the beach throughout the summer and now into the fall, my friend was finally able to get the local judge to determine his brother was mentally incompetent and sent to Michigan's Traverse City State mental hospital for treatment.

While there, he was placed in a ward for the criminally insane and almost killed. He bares the scars on his face to this day testifying to his personal ordeal at the hands of monsters.

He didn't deserve what he got either.........

153 posted on 08/20/2005 3:16:52 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco (What is a homosexual Islamic Jihadist going to do with 72 virgins? Can he give them away?)
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To: JohnLongIsland
people know what happens in prison

No, people know what is SUPPOSED to happen prison: attempted rehabilitation, not rape or murder.......

154 posted on 08/20/2005 3:25:26 PM PDT by Hot Tabasco
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To: Gunrunner2

What happened to him was far far worse than what he did, and what is worse is that you and I share responsibility for it since it is the government that represents us that allowed it to happen.


155 posted on 08/20/2005 4:02:15 PM PDT by thoughtomator (Just call me Mr. Zero Diversity Points!)
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To: Mrs Mark

Didn't know he was into that kind of stuff.


156 posted on 08/20/2005 4:06:15 PM PDT by stinkerpot65
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To: plain talk

No prisoners should be enjoying sex with each other including the thug rapists. Some of them get more sex in prison than without. What kind of deterrance is that?


157 posted on 08/20/2005 4:29:13 PM PDT by whatisthetruth
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To: Welsh Rabbit

I checked it out on Google. You're right; you would be banned.


158 posted on 08/20/2005 6:00:36 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Hey, Cindy Sheehan, grow up!)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

And rightfully so!


159 posted on 08/20/2005 6:15:41 PM PDT by Welsh Rabbit
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To: IronJack
"I'm asking seriously. On a scale of 1 (yawn) to 10 (the sky is falling!), how much are we supposed to care?"

You heartless, cold SOB! The scale should read -10 to +10. Gives me more of a real choice! ;>

160 posted on 08/20/2005 6:31:11 PM PDT by Dacus943
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