“Also, the more frequent these “unjust” acquittals, the lower the accuracy of the courts, in your view, and the more pervasive the “wrong” definition of rape.” <– Well, unfortunately, yes. In a country supposedly built on rule of law, though, do you think actual written law or history of decisions *ignoring* said law should take precedence?

Acknowledging that rape happens, and certain actions on the part of women may make it more likely, and telling women this so they know it and can use it to *attempt* to protect themselves (attempt because it would often not be very effective), is different from saying that if a woman did whatever she wanted and got raped, then it’s in part her fault.

I don’t think it’s a problem to inform a woman of the risk of rape.

But it should be made clear that, while the ways of the world may ultimately make her de facto responsible for protecting herself, in moral terms it is *not* her responsibility. It’s only a survival strategy in an imperfect world. (Just like being careful in dangerous parts of cities.)

So, if you have a son, you say you will not bother telling him not to drink because he may get raped. What about telling him not to drink because he may rape someone?
I think spending more time telling women about rape than men just makes it their responsibility again, when it shouldn’t be because it’s not their action.

Fixed your link (twas f*cked up)

And I must agree with you on this one. In my eternal struggle to show Americans that Mexicans aren’t all lazy gardeners (and Uruguay exists) I just am who I am, rather than be an activist. Activists overestimate how much good they do and underestimate how much good normal ol’ people do by just being themselves.

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…

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.

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.

So, your answer to the dilemma will hinge on your motivations.

2. I would say that the woman walking through the dark alley has the same sort of responsibility as the party-girl: she’s not responsible for the rapist’s actions, but she is responsible for recklessly exposing herself to danger. The drunken party-girl is more blamable because not only has she put herself in a risky situation, she has made it so that she cannot consent, even if she explicitly consents. This is equivalent to a woman in the alley seeking out a potential mugger, urging him to please take all her money, then, in the morning, calling the police to say that she was robbed.

3. I didn’t claim that courts were anything close to 100% accurate in their decisions; it’s painfully obvious they’re not. My (somewhat sophistical) point was that if, as people were saying, there is a widespread problem of judges/juries incorrectly exonerating people accused of rape, perhaps that is an indication that the operative definition of rape is not precisely your definition. This would raise the question of whose job it is to interpret the statute (hint: black robes). Also, the more frequent these “unjust” acquittals, the lower the accuracy of the courts, in your view, and the more pervasive the “wrong” definition of rape. So either you have to say that these cases are not that frequent, or you have to admit that the operative definition of rape is different from what you claim.