Men: The Imprisoned Rape Victims Who Don't Matter
This piece underscores why I am a "humanist," not a feminist.
Simply put: I am for defending the rights of all people who have them violated. Whether they are male or female is immaterial. If you're human and your rights are violated, you're of concern to me.
Because of that, I was shocked -- though not surprised -- by an op-ed in the LA Times that goes on, and on, and on about prison rape. Prison rape of women.
The headline to the Lovisa Stannow piece:
"What's life like for thousands of incarcerated women? Imagine if Hollywood's worst predators had a key to your home"
As I mentioned yesterday, writers don't come up with the headlines.
But the headline -- properly, for someone who cares about human rights -- would be "What's life like for thousands of incarcerated people."
An excerpt from her piece:
It didn't start as rape. Just weeks after arriving at a Kentucky jail, Rosa (not her real name, to protect her safety) was already a target. One of her guards, a captain, entered her cell and demanded that she undress for him. Refusing was not an option, so Rosa complied.Of course he returned. That same month, the captain sexually assaulted Rosa in her cell -- the first of multiple attacks over the course of several weeks. She was eventually moved to a new facility, but she wasn't safe there either: Another guard, this time a lieutenant, abused her repeatedly. Both men were friends with other high-ranking officials who were willing to use threats to keep Rosa quiet. Courageously, she reported them to the police anyway. It didn't matter. Neither man faced charges. As far she knows, the captain still works at the jail.
What makes Rosa's story particularly depressing is that it is so common. Every year, about 200,000 people are sexually abused in U.S. detention facilities. Most of the victims are men, since they are far more likely to be locked up. But a recent survey by the Department of Justice found that at least 7% of incarcerated women reported being sexually abused in a one-year period. The true number is almost certainly higher. Prisoners are reluctant to come forward to talk about being raped while still under the perpetrator's control.
"Most of the victims are men."
As ABC's Dan Harris reports:
More than 200,000 men are raped behind bars each year, according to the group Stop Prisoner Rape.
If you truly care about justice, you care about justice for all, and men are not an afterthought.
Prison rape of men is a feature, not a bug.
dee nile at November 8, 2017 4:01 AM
That's really terrible.
Nobody is sentenced to be raped. Read that ABC piece. You shouldn't go through sexual torture because you go to prison. We owe it to you to protect you, same as we owe it to you to give you diabetes treatments if you are diabetic -- rather than just letting you die.
Amy Alkon at November 8, 2017 4:40 AM
Oh, men are "far more likely" to be locked up. So, men getting raped in prison is no big deal, just a numbers thing.
Let's get back to the real concern:
This is the real concern.
About that numbers thing.
Louisa Stannow in her Los Angeles Times op-ed says, "Every year, about 200,000 people are sexually abused in U.S. detention facilities." And Dan Harris of ABC reports, "More than 200,000 men are raped behind bars each year...."
So, the 200,000 victims of prison rape are almost entirely men? But that gets blown off by Stannow and the LA Times as just a numbers thing?
Modern identity politics demands we express concern, but not actually do anything, about the women being abused and pass over the abused men as mere statistics
The state should not serve as an enabler for predation, of any kind.
This is what you get when you put the government in charge of something. Covering up its own culpability is par for the course for an empowered bureaucracy - in any endeavor, not just the prison system. To sue the government in most states, you have to get the government's permission first.
Yet we have people pleading for the government to take a more active and direct role in people's economic and social lives, to restrict the public sphere even more.
A mass shooting elicits demands for government sponsored gun control. Corporate profits elicit demands for banking reform and restrictions on the movement of money. Conspicuous consumption elicits demands that the rich be taxed even more.
The EPA can poison an entire river, but what we should really be concerned about is coal and building more bird-killing solar plants.
Government corruption or malfeasance is merely shrugged off. After all, we need government to protect us from hate speech and global warming, right?
Conan the Grammarian at November 8, 2017 4:44 AM
Prison rape of men is a feature, not a bug.
Dee Nile, you are a truly abhorrent excuse for a human.
Grey Ghost at November 8, 2017 5:23 AM
Since everyone has already called dee nile for her (?) sentiment, I won't jump on the dogpile.
Conan: Oh, men are "far more likely" to be locked up.
I would also point out that men serve far longer sentences for the same offense, even when comparing first-time offenders. So, not only are men more likely to be locked up, they tend to stay there longer. Consequently, they probably suffer a greater number of sexual assaults and over a greater period of time.
Patrick at November 8, 2017 5:58 AM
I read Dee Nile's comment as cynical rather than sincere.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at November 8, 2017 6:32 AM
Covering up its own culpability is par for the course for an empowered bureaucracy - in any endeavor, not just the prison system. To sue the government in most states, you have to get the government's permission first.
And most of the bureaucracy has been gifted an extra Constitutional "get out of jail free" card: qualified immunity.
Doesn't matter if they do their job poorly, or at all, or commit crimes while working. If you can't break that qualified immunity, any chance of punishment or fiscal recovery goes down the toilet.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 8, 2017 6:55 AM
So, according to feminist statistics, it's far more likely that a woman will be "sexually assaulted" on a college campus than in prison.
Keep our girls safe! Send them to prison!
Jay R at November 8, 2017 12:54 PM
I took a deposition in a Louisiana prison that ranges from minimum to maximum security. Depo took place between inmates who were in solitary.
The prison only lacks death row. Anyway, I was innocently inspecting the fliers papering the walls of the room where the deposition occurred when I realized they were all about reporting prison rape -- PREA. I'd have taken a picture if they had allowed my phone in the prison. And then the content of the depo -- it was x-rated. Orange Is the New Black is not that far from the reality inside those walls. It's dark, it's bleak, and it's ripe for abuse of prisoners by anyone in authority and anyone needing protection. Video recordings of the barracks were deleted, nonfunctioning, or just didnt record anything. Most prisoners are not there for heinous sex crimes against their victims, which is who we hope is getting abused. No, it's more likely the smaller, weaker males who can't fight or who need protection. It's disgusting and it needs to stop.
gooseegg at November 8, 2017 1:25 PM
I'm glad for the attention that assaults on incarcerated females receives, since it is likely the only way incarcerated men would receive any help is through scraps or accident in the helping of women.
Joe j at November 8, 2017 2:28 PM
I agree with Conan that the last paragraph quoted reads an awful lot like, "Yes, it's true that most of the people raped in prison are men, BUUUUUUUT..." I'll try to be charitable towards the author and suppose that a Times editor butchered it.
The problem with stopping prison rape is: how do you prevent it? It's part of the bigger problem: how do you break up prison gangs? Which is part of an even bigger problem: how do you keep prisoners from buying into, and becoming a part of, a dysfunctional culture -- especially when that culture probably at least resembles the one that they knew in the outside world?
I did some online research, and there don't appear to be very many practical ideas. There's a lot of activist groups demanding that Government Do Something (which boils down to, "give us grants"). There's some trite and fairly useless advice like "say no to prison rape" and "make prisoners and staff care about prison rape". Good luck with that. Honestly, the most useful suggestion I found was, "don't send people to prison who don't need to be in prison". Honestly, it may be that the only way to really put a stop to it is to keep all prisoners in solitary confinement all the time, and we've all already agreed that that's inhumane, as well as impractical given our prison population.
Cousin Dave at November 8, 2017 2:53 PM
There's also the insidious side of sexuality in confinement. Prison does turn people gay. It's not out of want but out of necessity. The young mentally unstable man at the table had developed a "relationship" with an inmate. Before prison he was engaged and had a baby. He was never going to be gay in that life. But he's gonna spend 25 more years in prison and he most definitely is a victim in more ways than one.
I'm not a bleeding heart. He committed the horrific crime that warrants him being there. But to what extent are prisoners meant to suffer? I believe separating prisoners is a better outcome. It doesnt have to be solitary, but there does need to be something besides open barracks. More security, more guards, more oversight. There's very, very little money spent per inmate. Louisiana is a horrible example of how not to do incarceration with its many for-profit prisons that have resulted in crimes I can't and won't go into here. Fewer inmates, more room, more supervision. That's my input.
gooseegg at November 8, 2017 4:19 PM
It's a lack of horizons.
When I graduated high school, I felt that the world was open to me. I felt like I could use college as my ticket to any place in the country in which I wanted to work and live. I felt I had the skills and ability to survive anywhere. Reality intervened and sentenced me to a less glamorous life than I'd envisioned for myself, but I was eventually able to translate my education and skills into a location I wanted.
I compare this to how a less-economical well-off nephew felt when he graduated high school. He was unsure of what to do next and when asked where in the country he would live if he could, he had no idea of the world outside his own hometown. He joined the military and panicked when they sent him to Georgia. Word that the US Army was sending him to Korea rendered him catatonic. He eventually left the Army with a medical discharge and has not left his hometown since.
When the Witness Protection Program was founded, the founders discovered that mobsters and gangsters rarely left their own neighborhoods, so hiding a witness a few towns over would leave them safe.
These folks do not have broad horizons. It's tough for people with broad horizons to relate to people with narrow ones. We wonder why, when given an opportunity to travel, they don't look forward to it. To them, it's scary; to us, exciting.
Conan the Grammarian at November 8, 2017 4:33 PM
Dee Nile, he (or she) of November 8, 2017 4:01 AM, is presumably licensed to drive and registered to vote.
Let's consider this: He (or she) meant to say that. It's how he (or she) wants the world of criminal justice to work.
He (or she) wants people to be sexually tortured.
Crid at November 9, 2017 5:53 AM
As Old RPM Daddy guessed, my post was an observation about what our "justice" system is, not about what it ought to be.
But let me comfort Crid with one correction: I am *not* registered to vote. I'll let his fertile imagination speculate as to why.
dee nile at November 9, 2017 11:45 AM
Leave a comment