Posted on 02/12/2007 11:22:29 AM PST by B-Chan
"I've been sentenced for a D.U.I. offense. My 3rd one. When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to 5 black men and two white men at a time. I've had knifes at my head and throat. I had fought and been beat so hard that I didn't ever think I'd see straight again. One time when I refused to enter a cell, I was brutally attacked by staff and taken to segragation though I had only wanted to prevent the same and worse by not locking up with my cell mate. There is no supervision after lockdown. I was given a conduct report. I explained to the hearing officer what the issue was. He told me that off the record, He suggests I find a man I would/could willingly have sex with to prevent these things from happening. I've requested protective custody only to be denied. It is not available here. He also said there was no where to run to, and it would be best for me to accept things . . . . I probably have AIDS now. I have great difficulty raising food to my mouth from shaking after nightmares or thinking to hard on all this . . . . I've laid down without physical fight to be sodomized. To prevent so much damage in struggles, ripping and tearing. Though in not fighting, it caused my heart and spirit to be raped as well. Something I don't know if I'll ever forgive myself for."
***
The letter excerpted above was one of the first to reach Human Rights Watch in response to a small announcement posted in Prison Legal News and Prison Life Magazine, two publications with a wide audience in U.S. prisons. Having been alerted to the problem of prisoner-on-prisoner rape in the United States by the work of activists like Stephen Donaldson of the organization Stop Prisoner Rape, we had decided to conduct exploratory research into the topic and had put a call out to prisoners for information. The resulting deluge of letters--many of which included compelling firsthand descriptions such as this--convinced us that the issue merited urgent attention. Rape, by prisoners' accounts, was no aberrational occurrence; instead it was a deeply-rooted, systemic problem. It was also a problem that prison authorities were doing little to address.
The present report--the product of three years of research and well over a thousand inmate letters--describes the complex dynamics of male prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse in the United States. The report is an effort to explain why and how such abuse occurs, who commits it and who falls victim to it, what are its effects, both physical and psychological, how are prison authorities coping with it and, most importantly, what reforms can be instituted to better prevent it from occurring.
***
The Scope of this Report
This report is limited in scope to male prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse in the United States. It does not cover women prisoners, nor does it cover the sexual abuse of male prisoners by their jailers. Human Rights Watch investigated the problem of custodial sexual misconduct in U.S. women's prisons in two previous reports and the issue has been a continuing focus of our U.S. advocacy efforts. As to custodial sexual misconduct against male prisoners, we decided not to include that topic within the scope of this report even though some prisoners who claimed to have been subject to such abuse did contact us. An initial review of the topic convinced us that it involved myriad issues that were distinct from the topic at hand, which is complicated enough in itself.
Even though the notices that Human Rights Watch circulated to announce our research on prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse were written in gender-neutral language, we received no information from women prisoners regarding the problem. As prison experts are well aware, penal facilities for men and women tend to differ in important respects. If the problem of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse exists in women's institutions--a possibility we do not exclude--it is likely to take somewhat different forms than in men's prisons.
For several reasons, the primary focus of this report is on sexual abuse in prisons, rather than jails. Most importantly, all of our information save a handful of letters came from prison as opposed to jail inmates. Many of these prisoners did, however, describe sexual abuses they had suffered when previously held in jails, allowing us to gather some information on the topic. Nonetheless, the bulk of our prisoner testimonies and documentation--and all of the information we collected from state authorities--pertain specifically to prisons. Already, with fifty separate state prison jurisdictions in the United States, the task of collecting official information was difficult; obtaining such information from the many thousands of local authorities responsible for city and county jails would have been infinitely more so. Yet we should emphasize that our lack of specific research on jails should be not interpreted as suggesting that the problem does not occur there. Although little research has been done on sexual assault in jails, the few commentators who have examined the topic have found the abuse to be similarly or even more prevalent there.
It is evident to Human Rights Watch, even without having completed exhaustive research into the jail context, that the problems we describe with regard to prisons generally hold true for jails as well. This conclusion derives from the fact that most of the risk factors leading to rape exist in prisons and jails alike. We therefore believe that our recommendations for reform are largely applicable in the jail context, and we urge jail authorities to pay increased attention to the issue of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse.
While this report does not deal specifically with juvenile institutions, we note that previous research, while extremely scanty, suggests that inmate-on-inmate sexual abuse may be even more common in juvenile institutions than it is in facilities for adults. Indeed, a case filed recently by the U.S. Justice Department in federal court to challenge conditions in a Louisiana juvenile institution includes serious allegations of inmate-on-inmate rape.
Finally, our choice of U.S. prisons as the subject of this research, over prisons elsewhere in the world, in no way indicates that we believe the problem to be unique to the United States. On the contrary, our international prison research convinces us that prisoner-on-prisoner rape is of serious concern around the world. We note that several publications on human rights or prison conditions in other countries have touched on or explored the topic, as have past Human Rights Watch prison reports.(8) Interestingly, researchers outside of the United States have reached many of the same conclusions as researchers here, suggesting that specific cultural variables are not determinative with regard to rape in prison.(9)
***
Methodology
The report is primarily based on information collected from over 200 prisoners spread among thirty-seven states. The majority of these inmates have been raped or otherwise sexually abused while in prison, and were therefore able to give firsthand accounts of the problem. Numerous inmates who were not subject to sexual abuse also provided their views on the topic, including information about sexual assaults that they had witnessed. A very small number of inmates who had themselves participated in rape also contributed their perspectives. Much of the information was received via written correspondence, although Human Rights Watch representatives spoke by telephone with a number of prisoners, and personally interviewed twenty-six of them. Prisoner testimonies were supplemented by documentary materials such as written grievances, court papers, letters, and medical records.
Prisoners were contacted using several different methods. Human Rights Watch posted announcements in a number of publications and leaflets that reach prisoners--including Prison Legal News, Prison Life Magazine (which has since ceased publication), and Florida Prison Legal Perspectives--informing them that we were conducting research on the topic of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse and that we welcomed their information. Several organizations that work with prisoners, including Stop Prisoner Rape, put us in contact with additional inmates.
The prisoners who collaborated in our efforts were thus a largely self-selected group, not a random sampling. Previous researchers have conducted quantitative studies using statistically valid techniques in certain U.S. prisons -- most recently, in 1998 in seven midwestern state prison systems -- but, given that there are some two million prisoners in the United States, this would be difficult to achieve on a national scale. The research on which the present report was based was thus qualitative in nature: it sought to identify systemic weaknesses rather than to quantify actual cases of abuse. The result, we believe, sketches the outlines of a national problem, bridging the gap between academic research on the topic and the more anecdotal writings that occasionally appear in the popular press.
The prisoners with whom Human Rights Watch was in contact, we should emphasize, did not simply serve as a source of case material. Rather, their comments and insights--based on firsthand knowledge and close observation--inform every page of the report.
Besides prisoners, we also obtained valuable information from prison officials, prison experts, lawyers who represent prisoners, prisoners rights organizations, and prisoners' relatives. Written materials including academic studies, books, and articles from the popular press supplemented these sources. In addition, Human Rights Watch conducted an extensive review of the case law relevant to prison rape in the United States.
Typical liberal. Do you libs ever have a day when you aren't afraid of your own shadow?
I've always thought it was ridiculous that these things are allowed to happen in a controlled environment like a prison. It seems like a great case for privitization. If the guards were held responsible like at any other private firm, the number of rapes would be cut way back. In a government facility, a guard can take a bribe to look the other way and just shrug his shoulders when an inmate is attacked. In a private facility, he would be held directly responsible for what happened on his watch. I'm not soft on crime at all, but it's a crime in and of itself that prisoners under the care of the state and federal government are allowed to run amok like a bunch of wild animals.
Did I miss it in the article; what prison did this happen in?
Don't violate the law. Don't get thrown in prison.
Don't enter the border patrol profession.
Excellent point!
I've learned from experience.
;-)
I have a problem with the whole concept of prison as it is known today. I don't think it is effective either as a means of punishment or as a way to safeguard the public from criminals. I would prefer to see a simple three-tiered system of criminal punishment: confinement (under Spartan conditions -- say an outdoor fenced pen behind the local courthouse) for misdemeanor crimes, corporal punishment (caning) for non-violent felony crimes, and hanging for crimes of violence. Hanging would be used only in cases where a plea of "guilty" is entered by the accused; those claiming innocence would be given a commuted sentence (up to life) without possibility of parole, to be served in a prison camp run under military discipline.
Ideally, we should have a Coventry -- an area where the law does not apply -- in every state. This area would have fenced and guarded borders, but within those borders would be without any law or legal government at all. Those who choose to live without the law would be sent to Coventry, where no law exists, there to survive as best they can.
If anyone has experienced sheer terror, it’s Kirk Bloodsworth.Still think it can't happen to you?Tried and found guilty of the brutal rape and murder of a 9-year-old Rosedale girl, the barrel-chested crabber from the Eastern Shore was sentenced to die in the gas chamber for his horrific crimes.
But Mr. Bloodsworth didn’t have anything to do with what he was accused of. A former marine with no criminal record, he had been wrongly convicted and would later become the first American on death row to be exonerated by DNA testing.
But as he was led onto the grounds of the Maryland State Penitentiary in Baltimore in 1985 on his first day on death row, no one believed his story – least of all the other prisoners.
Handcuffed and shackled as he slowly made his way across the yard of the penitentiary, Mr. Bloodsworth noticed other prisoners racing to the fences to glimpse the monster they had heard so much about.
This was the man a Baltimore County jury convicted of beating Dawn Hamilton with a rock, sexually mutilating her, raping her and strangling her to death by stepping on her neck.
As the new prisoner shuffled onto the old prison campus, he was dwarfed by the gothic structure’s tall granite walls, silver spires and imposing turrets that loomed ominously over Forrest Street like a medieval castle.
Jeering at him, the inmates shouted repeated threats of violence.
“We’re going to do to you what you did to that little girl,” they screamed. “We’re going to get you, Kirk!”...
Mr. Bloodsworth believes one of the main reasons he was arrested was the tremendous pressure Baltimore County police were under to find the person who had committed those heinous acts in the summer of 1984. Two young boys identified him as the person they saw near the crime scene and an anonymous caller said he had been seen with the girl earlier in the day.
Mr. Bloodsworth, who never met the murdered girl, had told an acquaintance he had done something “terrible” that day. He was referring to his failure to buy his wife dinner, but it was used against him in a different context.
Although he lived in the area of the crime, Mr. Bloodsworth had returned to the Eastern Shore soon after the murder – making it look like he had fled. Misfortune seemed to conspire against him at every turn.
The Maryland Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 1986 because of withheld information at his original trial, but he was again found guilty by a second jury and sentenced to two consecutive life terms. Of the nearly nine years he spent behind bars, two of them were on death row.
Mr. Bloodsworth was the one who had first proposed the idea of DNA testing. An avid reader in prison who served as the librarian, he learned about the new technology in a book called “The Blooding.” Robert Morin, his attorney, was able to get his client tested.
It was exactly that post-conviction testing that proved Mr. Bloodsworth’s innocence in 1993. He was released and paid $300,000 in compensation – the accumulated salary the state said he would have earned as a waterman. Gov. William Donald Schaefer pardoned him that same year.
Mr. Bloodsworth said he had to endure the suspicions of many who believed he had gotten off on a technicality. It was difficult for him to maintain a job after his release because people thought he was a murderer. DNA testing later identified the real killer – Kimberly Shay Ruffner, a man who had been previously charged with sexually assaulting children. He pled guilty to the Dawn Hamilton murder and is now serving a life sentence.
The prison system in the US is uncivilised and a violation against fundamental human rights. It's as simple as that really.
--Still think it can't happen to you?--
Anything can happen but odds are extremely small that I don't worry about it. I would not have left the area right after being questioned with my wife filing a missing persons report on me. His excuse for leaving town? He forgot to bring home some fast food for his wife's dinner and she was mad at him. Along with the 'eye-witness' testimonies, he certainly looked guilty. But now we have DNA testing (which set him free) so it is less likely to happen now.
Since Human Rights Watch is involved I question the authenticity of the letter(s) and the study.
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