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Why Do We Tolerate Prison Rape?

By Jeralyn, Section Inmates and Prisons
Posted on Fri May 09, 2003 at 11:05:12 PM EST
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Rich Lowry writes in The shame of our prisons:
Our tolerance for prison rape, considered a subject fit for late-night TV humor, is a great mystery. We profess to abhor rape, to adore personal dignity, to uphold the rights of the downtrodden -- yet we sentence tens of thousands of men every year to the most bestial kind of abuse, without a second thought beyond the occasional chuckle.

The silence surrounding this national shame has been broken by a right-left coalition in Washington that is pushing federal prison-rape legislation, likely to pass and be signed into law this year. It will be a first step to alleviating the problem, if not the end of the vile jokes. . . .

The bill seems impossible to oppose, but that hasn't stopped elements of the Bush Justice Department from resisting. They worry that the bill trespasses on federalism principles, even though the Supreme Court has held that deliberate indifference to rape violates the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
[Link via Instapundit who says, "I don't see the federalism issue here -- you've got state action, and a violation of constitutional rights. So where's Ashcroft on this?" He'd also like an answer from Bill Lockyer.] The Government does not know the full extent of the problem. Stop Prisoner Rape reports that the FBI's crime statistics don't include male rape victims.
The categories of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report were created in 1929, according to the report. The forcible rape of men is explicitly excluded from the annual analysis of the “violent crime” in the U.S., which draws from the reports of 17,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country. The FBI’s report states that it “has traditionally defined rape victims as female.”
The bi-partisan Prison Rape Reduction Act of 2003 has been introduced in Congress. It needs your help. Click here to send a letter to Bush and Ashcroft urging their support. The bill's stated purpose is "to provide for the analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape in Federal, State, and local institutions and to provide information, resources, recommendations, and funding to protect individuals from prison rape."

Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun wrote in Farmer v. Brennan,
The horrors experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the unimaginable. Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit. Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure.
Read the full text of the bill, H.R. 1707, here. In February, 2003, a $13 million funding package was approved for the study of prisoner rape as part of the $397 billion federal spending bill. It is the first-ever federal appropriation for research on the issue.
The language of the funding package states that the money is to be used for "implementation of prison rape prevention and prosecution programs including a statistical review and analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape . [and] the development of national standards for enhancing the detection, prevention, reduction, and punishment of prisoner rape." It is unclear, however, whether the newly appropriated funds can be spent before the passage of the Prison Rape Reduction Act of 2003, legislation that will be introduced to the House of Representatives this session. Staffers in the office of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Congressman Frank Wolf, R-Va., both co-sponsors of the PRRA, said they were uncertain about whether any of the $13 million pool could be spent immediately.
This means until the bill is passed, none of the money will be used.

Prison rape is a human rights crisis. So please, urge Bush and Ashcroft to get over their federalism non-issue and let this bill pass. For more on the issue, see our prior posts from last July and October, here and here.

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