If backing gay marriage earns a rainbow halo, stopping prison rape at least warrants this….
The Justice Department just announced the first comprehensive federal rules aimed at “zero tolerance” for sexual assaults against inmates in prisons, jails and other houses of detention. The new policy has teeth in it, decreeing that states that don’t take adequate measures to prevent sexual assault on prisoners will lose federal prison funds. This initiative was disgracefully long in coming, but begins the repair of the human rights atrocity going on in the nation’s prisons literally since the first cell door clanged shut. It is the right kind of “no-tolerance” policy, because allowing prisoners to rape other prisoners—it is estimated that at least 10% of all inmates experience sexual assault—-should never have been tolerated. That it has also been used by law enforcement and popular culture to enhance the deterrent power of imprisonment, essentially making rape a culturally and governmentally sanctioned element of the penal system, should weigh heavily on the national conscience for years to come. It was un-American, as vile a desecration of the principles of our country as torture.
It won’t, of course, because few Americans who don’t have friends and relatives in jail care what happens to prisoners, how badly they are treated or what kind of conditions they live in. As a result, President Obama won’t gain but a handful of votes and little media praise for his administration’s addressing a human rights issue that his predecessors ignored with shrugs and dragging feet. Unlike his tepid, cynical, contradictory and dragged-into-it-kicking-and-screaming endorsement of gay marriage that has no tangible effect at all, this decision won’t be trumpeted by the White House, spawn fawning Newsweek covers showing Obama in a prison-striped halo, or encourage George Clooney’s closeted gay Hollywood pals to open their checkbook. Nonetheless, it is that rarity in election year politics, an important measure that attacks a real problem intelligently and without great expense, protecting hundreds of thousands of Americans who are not a sought-after voting block, at no significant political advantage at all.
Bush didn’t do this, Clinton didn’t, nor Bush I, Reagan, the sensitive Jimmy Carter, or any other President extending backwards to George. Obama did.
Good for him.
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Sources:
Graphic: marsabsent
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Ethics Alarms 
Agreed: Good for him.
I’ve written on this before: The essential necessity of running any sort of prison is keeping everything–EVERYTHING–under control at all times. That’s the only way to protect the safety of both inmates and the employees who work there. Ironically, the nature of the beast is that complete control, even “enough control” is actually impossible.
I hope, having admittedly not read the new rules myself, that ANY form of assault is addressed, not just sexual.
–Dwayne
While this won’t win Obama many votes, it does seem his civil liberties record, though atrocious, is improving a bit. I put this in the same category as the AG backing video recording police, though significantly more important and harder politically.
10% is the average – though it might even be a little less.
For Trans and Intersex women, it’s 60%. Rate of HIV infection due to gang rape in jail is about 20%. It would be higher, but for many, it’s not the first time in jail, and they were HIV positive before they went in the second time.
— https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/226680.pdf
In many, perhaps even most, jails, nothing like this would ever happen. But in the places it does, it’s pretty bad, and with the tacit approval of Authority. Having some “comfort women” to allocate to favoured prisoners as rewards helps keep the lid on things..
Recent example from Louisiana:
Example from California:
— Legal analysis at http://newyorklawschool.typepad.com/leonardlink/2008/11/california-appeals-court-revives-transsexual-inmates-negligence-suit-against-prison-officials-but-rejects-state-constitutio.html of Giraldo v. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2008 Westlaw 4891584 (Cal. App. 1st Dist., Nov. 14, 2008).
Naturally, I don’t think anything like this should be tolerated. However, I very much doubt that it is policy in many prisons- official or unofficial- to turn a blind eye. There’s only so much you can do to control the general population of a large facility… except to keep them locked up. Therefore, I consider this a largely empty gesture on Obama’s part that DID have some political basis. After all, the prisons are loaded with his supporters.
I would have preferred if he had set his sights on bolstering the Center For Missing and Exploited Children, thus helping protect an innocent (though non-voting) segment of the population that needs protection more than any others.
Why not?
There’s no penalty for doing so, and as you said, their resources are limited. Look at the court transcripts, it’s been seriously argued that they have a duty of care not to be “recklessly indifferent”, but mere neglect doesn’t qualify under current law. Cruel and Unusual treatment is permissible, only Cruel and Unusual punishment is not.
I can only speak for the military prisons I worked in. There are a lot of lockups around the country, Zoe. They’re not all top notch or efficiently run, as we both know. But allowing this sort of thing also contributes to a dangerous situation with the prisoner population that no good warden would want to engender.
You assume that warden’s are rational and pragmatic.
They’d better be. It’s their job to be. In every institution, someone has to be in ultimate charge and accept the responsibility.
That they should be doesn’t mean that they are.
Sorry, but I can’t stand over every turnkey in the nation to make sure they’re doing their job.
Nobody asked you to. I was just pointing out that an underlying assumption in your comment was unfounded.
My point WAS that this law serves no real practical purpose. It’s only intended for some political grandstanding.
Yes. I agree that was your point, but you needed your assumptions for it to be valid.
Alright, let’s put it this way. I’m a trained and experienced correctional specialist. As such, I think my opinion on this subject deserves a little respect. You’re arguing theory based on what you conceive to be ethics. You’re entitled to that opinion. I, however, am merely offering an opinion of practicality based on my own work (directly) in three confinement facilities, plus other correctional functions.
SMP,
I am not discounting your opinion, just like I don’t discount your opinion on history. The problem is when your opinion requires unwarranted assumptions along with your expertise. In places where there are rational, high skilled wardens, the federal governments urgings on prison rape are going to have little affect, as I defer to you that it should already be handled as much as possible.
Indeed, it DOES come down to professionalism… as in all such matters. No argument there. I’m just questioning this law’s effectiveness, its constitutionality and its true motivations.
I don’t see how a funding penalty, as a consequence of failure to address the problem, will make things better. Increasing the hardships of life in the penal colony for the perpetrators (like, isolating them more rigorously) seems to hold more promise – but would require more, not less, funding. This just isn’t a problem that’s had money thrown at it. But it is a problem, and I do wish that even the most heinous criminals could endure their punishments without threat of, and suffering of, such assaults.