No Escape: Male Rape In U.S. Prisons

Human Rights Watch ^ | 2007.02.12 | Joanne Mariner

[Mrs. Don-o]

Its not wrong for Americans to want to protect Americans from rape.

Or do you think we need to protect Turks first?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Its not wrong for Americans to want to protect Americans from rape.

Or do you think we need to protect Turks first?

[gogeo]

I guess I understand your point, but I don't think of it as sympathy, merely just and right.

[TigersEye]

It's a sorry excuse for supporting the death penalty. Almost as sorry as excusing prison rape.

[Sherman Logan]

Solitary confinement under Spartan conditions should be the rule.

Given Spartan attitudes towards young boys, I don't think this will help much. :)

[PAMadMax]

I work as a vendor of correctional IT software/hardware and Inmate Telephone Systems (Before you all screech, these telephones do not cost taxpayers a stinkin' dime, the jails makes commission on calls from us). I work in the jails and in the pods/cellblocks, sometimes no more than an arm's length from even dangerous inmates (even in Washington DC Jail, the most dangerous local jail I've been in).

I have asked CO's from time to time if this is an issue. Some say yes, most say no. It happens, it isn't right and almost every CO and jail admin I know fight hard to eliminate prison rape. The motto is "Care, custody, and Control". Cameras fill even these new local jails that remind me more of Supermaxes than the local (pardon the pun) "pokey". CO's don't loiter behind a pod's desk, they move throughout the pod and the inmates.

I think HRW has a larger agenda, being that the US imprisons too many people for too long.

[RunningWolf]

Rape is a crime of violence exceed only by murder, and it has led to that also.

Enforcement of our laws should not stop at the bars of the jail.

Also I don't see anywhere in our legal jurisprudence where it includes being subject to rape as part of the penance.

[Lawdoc]

You are right about wrongful convictions. While it is not the norm it happens enough that everyone is at risk to some degree. Sad but true.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Nor is sympathy required by the Constitution." But justice is. And justice requires that the authorities must suppress rape; and that the assailant must be arrested, charged, and punished.

Since the assailant in this case is already in jail, punishment should obviously involve something more than jail or "more jail." I think the death penalty would arguably be justified, although on the merciful end of the spectrum, there's always flogging.

[P-40]

It's a sorry excuse for supporting the death penalty.

It isn't an excuse. It is a part of the legal reasoning behind why we have the death penalty. The 'corrective behavior' aspect of US prisons died out decades ago...so basically it is all revenge and retribution now. And repayment too, come to think of it.

[GadareneDemoniac]

OK, I'm probably gonna regret this, but, what is a "Compean supporter"?

[sick1]

You are amazingly short on sympathy. Justice does not involve implicit, underhanded punishment. If he's sentenced to 3, 5, 10 years, let him do his time but I have sympathy for anyone who is raped.

[TigersEye]

Pointing to legal executions as justification for prison rape is the same moral relativism as pointing to U.S. presence in the middle-east as justification for flying planes into the World Trade Center.

I'm just not comfortable resting on that rationality.

[ClearCase_guy]

I never said that Americans should not be protected.

My point is that some of these International Watch-dog groups could give a fig about Prison Rape or Human Rights, or Starving Children. It's not what they care about.

Mugabe is starving and killing people in Zimbabwe? I haven't heard Amnesty International say a whole lot about it -- because he is a Marxist, and because he is not a friend of the US. Therefore, he gets a pass and his crimes are not worth a lot of attention from the Do-Gooders.

Israel? Well, let's see: They are a friend of the US. That's bad. And, uh, they are on the Left, but they are not really Marxists. That's bad too. Let's get 'em!!!! Presto -- Non-stop coverage of all the terrible Israeli crimes against the poor defenseless Palestinians.

The Do-Gooders don't really care about Prison Rape. Their goal is to make the US and our friends look bad.

I'm sorry about prison rape. But I will always call the Do-Gooders on their anti-US agenda.

[MEGoody]

I would never gloat about prisoner on prisoner rape. It's a crime. It boils my blood that the prison guards and hierarchy look the other way.

[A.Hun]

Jose Compean...one of the convicted Border Patrol agents.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/RickAmato/2007/01/30/free_ramos,_compean

[MEGoody]

As plainly stated, I don't care about three time DUI offenders.

Do you care if laws against violent crime are enforced?

[P-40]

You are amazingly short on sympathy.

You get that way about repeat DUI offenders after relatively few late night phone calls.

[Mrs. Don-o]

As you (perhaps) know, the Catholic Catechism, while generally opposed to capital punishment, nevertheless teaches that the death penalty is justified in cases where imprisonment alone does not provide adequate safety from the aggressor.

This would seem to be a situation of that sort. If a man rapes or commits assault or murder while in prison, he is demonstrating that imprisonment alone is not adequate to restrain his aggressiveness or to protect society. Any guard or administrator who negligently or deliberately fails to suppress rape, is clearly also guilty.

[P-40]

Do you care if laws against violent crime are enforced?

You bet. Fortunately I don't have to enforce those laws either because there are just some people that I don't care about one way or the other.