Posted on 08/20/2005 11:18:38 AM PDT by neverdem
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 19 - T. J. Parsell was a lanky pimple-faced adolescent bent on mischief. So when he found a toy gun one evening in 1978 while wandering home from a high school party, he thought nothing of pointing it at a store clerk and grumbling, "Your money or your life."
He got $50 for what he now calls "a stupid impulsive prank." The incident landed the 17-year-old Parsell in an adult jail, where on his first night, an older inmate spiked his drink with Thorazine and sexually abused and raped him.
"While my friends prepared for our high school prom, I was being gang raped," Mr. Parsell testified on Friday to a Congressional commission investigating prison sexual abuse and rape.
Mr. Parsell, now 45, and a successful software executive who lives on Long Island, was one of six victims of prison rape to relate disturbing accounts with a bipartisan panel of The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission here.
"What they took from me went beyond sex," Mr. Parsell said. "They'd stolen my manhood, my identity and part of my soul."
The panel, which also heard from state and federal legislators, law enforcement and prison officials and mental health experts, has been investigating the prevalence, cause and possible solutions to a problem that many experts say has escalated as the prison system is collapsing. Overcrowding, staff shortages and budget cuts have contributed to an often taboo topic.
"As a society, we have an obligation to protect the people we lock up, even though they have harmed society," the commission chairman, Judge Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court in Washington, said. "Some people say inmates get what they deserve. But they don't think about the overall impact on society."
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
That's about the total number of folks on active duty and in the reserve components of the U.S. Armed Forces.
That's about the total number of folks on active duty and in the reserve components of the U.S. Armed Forces.
That's just under 1% of the population.
Many are in jail for non-violent drug offenses. Their only crime? Using an intoxicating substance other than alcohol or tobacco.
" Hahahaha. . .what a jokster. Just a little harmless fun. . .bad thing that happened to him, but his own actions put him there."
Ha ha, what a sensitive soul you are.
He was sentenced to jail, not to rape.
What he did was wrong, but nobody deserves to be raped in prison except child rapist themselves.
Rape someone in prison?
Cut off your tool and castrate.
I don't know why we don't go back to prisons that isolate the prisoners from one another. The great social experiment with rehabilitative has ultimately failed. All we've done is created a system of Criminal Universities across the United States, where small time crooks get sent to learn how to pull big time crimes, and network. The situation also practically lends itself to power games like "rape the newbie".
"I don't know why we don't go back to prisons that isolate the prisoners from one another."
Do you realize how much taxpayer money that would cost?
"You can choose to move to Mexico as a free man, or you can spend the next 25 in jail. Your choice."
Ya know... kinda what the Mexicans do to us.
Those comments and attitude will go great on the liberals' posters to show how stupid conservatives are.
I bet Bwarney Fwranks, is yearning to be on that panel.
With our borders ? like they wouldn't be back from mexico in about 10 minutes...
It's far from a joke to get repeatedly raped in prison. There are some prisoners I would wish it on but not very many
And how do we know he wasn't one of those?
He was into "mischief," and if the reporter characterizes robbery with a gun (real or not) and the threat to kill someone a prank, then I have real questions as to his past criminal activities.
>Hahahaha. . .what a jokster. Just a little harmless fun. . >.bad thing that happened to him, but his own actions put him >there
I agree with you but no one deserves rape as a punishment. Thats what those bastards in Pakistan do to women who "dishonor the family."
As far as I am concerned rape is worse than death. Its the deliberate attempt to rob a person of their soul.
We need to do whatever possible to eliminate prison rape. My suggestion: Prison Work Camps with Hard Labor. They will be too busy and tired to rape.
How sorry are we supposed to feel for felons who get raped in prison? I'm asking seriously. On a scale of 1 (yawn) to 10 (the sky is falling!), how much are we supposed to care?
And yours to show the liberals how they have an ally in you. . being soft on crime and all.
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