By Alison Thurston
Trigger Warning
Last month, the Department of Justice missed its deadline to formalize standards set by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission in 2009. These standards would, if enacted and enforced, work to end sexual assault in prisons and detention centers in the U.S. The commission is comprised of advocates, prison rape survivors, and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, and called for fast action from Attorney General Holder to make the measures standard. Unfortunately, Holder did not act, because prison officials claim that putting these changes into effect would cost over $1 billion each year. That $1 billion dollars would translate to changes in training, facilities, and personnel that would put a major dent in the number of sexual assaults reported in prison– over 60,000 each year, according to the Department of Justice. It outlines a zero-tolerance policy towards prison rape, and methods for prevention, detection and response for facilities. A total revamping of the laws is absolutely necessary—an unacceptable 12% of juveniles in detention centers report being raped in the United States.
According to the disturbing reports of survivors it appears that the sources of abuse of prisoners are both manipulative prison staff (who clearly have no business being in positions of power, so it’s obvious more stringent hiring processes and employee reviews are needed) or by other prisoners, often in large groups. The tales they tell are quite graphic, and to read their stories–of being trapped in the place where they were assaulted, seeing their rapists day in and day out, and finding no recourse even when they find the courage to speak up with counselors—is quite painful.
Reading these accounts only further proved to me that prisoners need to be protected, and that for many, our prison system is the kind of psychological hell no one should experience, no matter their crime. But after a look around at popular television shows and the comments sections of the very articles I read for this article, it’s clear that not everyone agrees. One of my favorite shows on television, The Boondocks, broadcast a tone-deaf episode entitled “the Booty Warrior” this June that was basically one, looooong prison rape joke. Main character Huey’s neighbor, Tom duBois, has an irrational fear of prison rape, faces his fears by visiting a prison, and throughout the episode, faces down mean and menacing Black prisoners who try to get his “booty” without his consent. This drags on for thirty excruciating minutes. Creator Aaron McGruder is slipping hard if he thinks that this “creative expression” was more funny than tragic. It wasn’t. It only further trivialized the plight of men in prison, as if nonconsensual sex was okay as long as the assaulter didn’t want it “in a gay way.” By reducing this problem to a series of stale soap jokes, he slapped in the face the survivors fighting for recognition and justice. Gang rape is not a joke, and advice about holding on to your body wash in the shower is not going to cut it.
On Betty White’s May Saturday Night Live episode, she, as “Grandma McIntosh” tries to scare high schoolers straight, by threatening them with the promise that the “Wizard of Ass” is going to come get them if they end up in jail. My childhood idol Kenan Thompson, to the tune of the classic Oompa loompa song, sings of other prisoners “laying you down on the boiler room flat—what does your rear end think of that?” You guys? This is not funny. At all. This is happening, and all of Betty White’s posturing against animal cruelty is a strange contrast to her marked disregard for the sexual autonomy of prisoners. Why is the systematic abuse of human beings less important than that of a dog?
When looking to the comments boards on these articles, I read comments like: “well, maybe this will deter people from going to prison,” or, “some of them should get AIDS for what they did” or,” hahaha, don’t drop the soap!” These frail attempts to defend the state of our sorry criminal justice system are pitiful. Rape is never okay. No crime is punishable by an incurable disease, and it is not acceptable to suggest that somehow it is okay for prisoners to be sexually assaulted because of their crimes. That is inhumane. It is not okay for facilities in a country that helped draft the UN’s declaration of human rights (and that feels entitled to criticize the human rights violations of countless other nations) to have its own exception for convicted criminals. That, my friends, is hypocrisy.
Something must be done. Holder still has the opportunity to standardize the laws, but if his hand-wringing before Congress in March (and the DOJ’s complete lack of a timeline thus far) are any indication, nothing will be done on the issue for quite a while—and thousands of prisoners will languish until he does.
Image from Still Burning‘s flickr.
Another good post by alison. Unfortunately, though, prisoners are not the most sympathetic figures so I doubt the issue will ever get the attention it deserves. (this is compounded by the fact that felons, those who are most exposed to prison rape, can’t exert any political pressure.) keep in mind the Stanford experiment though when thinking about solutions, since hiring different guards is unlikely to change behavior. Now allow me the cheap shot of saying that it would be easier to find the 1 billion for this necessary change were the govt not bankrupting itself on ill conceived progressive projects like hcr.
Prisoners are humans too. They suffer just as much as a “free” person when they are raped.
However, they have done injustices to our society. That $1 billion a year would be better spent helping children or other people in need. Money doesn’t grow on trees, as the old adage goes, and law-abiding people deserve it more than felons. The opportunity cost is just too high to invest serious money into the prison system, which is why (hopefully) none of it will end up there.
“…law-abiding people deserve it more than felons.”
It’s not so black and white. Many people who have committed crimes are never caught or, if caught, are exonerated, and many (but hopefully much fewer) people are convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Even among rightfully-incarcerated prisoners, there is a wide range, from serial murderers to guys who got caught with a lot of weed.
The punishment is supposed to be commensurate with the crime, right? And just as it would be unjust to give a murderer a pothead’s sentence, it would be unjust to give that unlucky Terran a murderer’s sentence. Thus sentencing hearings. But if a prisoner is getting raped in prison, he’s being punished beyond what the law/judge says his crime deserved (assuming, I hope correctly, that the law/judge does not take the likelihood of rape into account in sentencing), and this is unjust to the degree that the punishment exceeds the crime. And I would imagine that being prison-raped is about the worst punishment you could dream up.
But now think about which prisoners are more likely to get raped. Maybe I’ve watched too much Oz, but I’d guess that it’s the nonviolent offenders who are unaffiliated with any gang–in other words, the prisoners who deserve the least punishment. That’s not good.
Maybe prison rape serves as an extra deterrent to crime, I don’t know. But even if it did, I have a hard time seeing the utilitarian calculus saying anything other than that this problem needs to be fixed, now.
Of course, you’d need to be a heartless bastard or a moron to think that rape in prison is ok or should happen. I will never deny that. It is CERTAINLY a problem that needs to be fixed. However, your last statement really lives in a vacuum as there are numerous things that need to be fixed right now. The sad truth is that they can’t all be fixed this very second, thus we must prioritize, and in that priority people who have not committed crimes > people that have. Accepting that prison rape is unjust, cruel and unusual and that it needs to be fixed does not lead to the conclusion that it needs to be fixed NOW or with money that could be spent elsewhere.
This is especially true because it is not a penalty that is state enforced or sponsored, thus even less constitutional motivation. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to rape in prison, is it not? It’s not like we turn a blind eye, we just accept there are worthier causes…
These comments that indicate spending significant money on prison reform illuminate the greater problem behind our understanding of prisoners and their effect on society. We have to understand, first of all, that just because someone is in prison, it does not mean that they are a violent menace to society. Many commit crimes because they are neglected by the rest of Americans who turn a blind eye to poverty. Furthermore, I would venture to say (though I don’t have stats to back it up) that a majority of prisoners are already victims of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. If we saw prisons as places of repair and healing instead of places to “throw the scum of the earth” (as I have heard them referenced), then perhaps we would spend far less money on housing repeat offenders and we would have far more productive, tax-paying members of society.
Thank you, Alison, for your attention to this issue and I hope you continue to be an advocate!
Hannah,
as righteous as you may think you sound, the plain fact of the matter is that there are people NOT in jail that have done absolutely nothing wrong and REFRAIN from doing the things that were done by the people in prison. You may spew all you want about the rest of society being at fault for what these convicts would “inevitably” do because of their plight, but, again, there are others who are in the same position who do not impose themselves on society like those who are in prison.
Many of us are quite content with understanding that prisoners aren’t all “violent menaces to society”, but that is hardly what I am talking about or caring about. I care about all those people who HAVEN’T broken the laws and aren’t getting those $1 billion a year.
It would be great for prisons to be places of healing, but there are people outside of prison that need healing more. Any healing, money or time spent on prisoners can be better justified being spent on people on the outside.
The main problem with your ideology is that you focus entirely too much on what your opponents think about the people in the prison, whereas they aren’t. They don’t want people in prison to get raped because they are the scum of the earth (ok, some do because they think it is a further deterrent as some sort of psychological reinforcement, and there are certainly people in prison who are, and i say this quite unsympathetically, scum of the earth). The people against your argument, like i was saying, aren’t usually spiteful towards the prisoners, rather they understand, like I do, that there are opportunity costs. That $1 billion is not going to go unspent if it isn’t used for prisons, it will go to schools (hopefully) and other more important areas of our society.
Of course, we can always talk about how it is infinitely more helpful to start at the root of the cause, which is why I’m catholic after all, rather than try to bandage things up after the person has committed a crime against society. Some people are a lost cause, at least to us humans, obviously God can save them, but it’s going to be impossible to tell most pedophiles to stop raping children.
If you really want to lower crime rates and imprisonment rates, I guarantee you that spending $1 billion on children and education of said children will go miles more than investing in some prison rape prevention program.
Roscoe, taken literally, your reasoning (“people who have not committed crimes > people that have”) would dictate that the government not even spend money to give the prisoners food, to say nothing of such luxuries as beds, toilets, clinics, etc. (Again on the implausible assumption that these two categories are a 1 for 1 match with “not in jail” and “in jail”.) If you want to avoid this conclusion, you have to admit that there’s a basic level of humane treatment due to any citizen in the government’s power. Presumably this involves at least some attempt to protect this person from violent rape. And while it’s true that the question is how the money can be best spent, the government spends far more money on far less promising initiatives.