Prison Rape

[Rain Monkey]

There is a story today about prison rape in the US: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29459043.htm

I'm disappointed that The Stranger has not taken up the issue of prison rape. It just would seem natural that now that the gay community has gotten street cred, alternative newspapers and especially gay sex advice columnists (ahem) would go on record as being opposed to the use of rape as a dehumanizing means of controlling inmates.

Here is a link to "Stop Prison Rape": http://www.spr.org/

Several years ago a judge ordered a minor into the adult mens facility in Idaho, perhaps thinking the boy would be "scared straight." Instead he was fucked to death. If there was any justice in the world that judge would be fucked to death (by a horse, or maybe a rabid wildebeest), but the brutality of US prisons is not acceptable for non-violent offenders. Or really, for anyone else who has been deprived of their freedom and confined by the state. The heinousness of criminals does not justify the systematic use of torture by the state, which is what this is.

Of course rape is just the most graphic tip of the iceberg of assault and dehumanization. Here is a link about prison guards in California indicted for staging prison yard fights for their own amusement: http://www.prisonactivist.org/pipermail/prisonact-list/1998-February/001314.html

[brentandrews]

This burns me up. This proves Osama right: The U.S. is the Great Satan. Our own CIA caused Sept. 11, 2001. Our insane killer troops have blotted out 25,000 innocent people in Iraq, under the tutelage of their violent farting sargeants. It's no wonder the Great Satan's domestic prison population of 2.1 million is subject to rape and worse. LP.org estimates 750,000 non-violent offenders are counted in that number. Let's hope they're non-violent no longer when they come out. That many people could do away with the Great Satan - if they'll fight. They'll have to burn and bomb and fight and die. But wouldn't they be doing the world a favor? The U.S. Government is the Great Satan. Pray for justice for the Great Satan.

My favorite prison story - the one that convinced me my government must really be the Great Satan, to put its people in such violent prisons - is called "Who'll Stop the Reign?" (http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/11/features-duersten.php) Check it out.

[Rain Monkey]

Um, thanks for your support. Although I'm not sure I follow your logic.

Actually, I'm not sure I follow my own logic, now that I think about it. That the gay community somehow has a greater responsibility to denounce prison rape than anyone else.

I do think that they have an opportunity to make it clear that while we generally don't hear the late night comics making jokes about heterosexual street rape, they do often find the prospect of a white collar, white criminal going to prison to be the build up to a punch line about anal rape with racist references.

My own view is not so much that this proves that America is the great satan, more that this is one more area where the religious right has framed the discussion for years (i.e. that America would be a better place if less effort was put into crime prevention then in building more prisons and making the punishments more brutal). And that the politicians of the left have followed along with the "tough on crime" fascist bullshit.

The religious right claims to care about the unborn, yet is unwilling to do anything that would prevent babies from growing up to be hardened criminals. In the new book "Freakonomics," the argument is made, pretty convincingly, that the drop in crime in the late nineties was a delayed effect of the Roe v. Wade decision. That once abortion became widely available, unwanted children became less numerous, and twenty years later crime rates dropped.

[elswinger]

Prison rape is no more about sexuality as any other kind of rape. Rapists should get the death penalty.

[Johnny Slick]

Prison rape is no more about sexuality as any other kind of rape. Rapists should get the death penalty.Uh, no they shouldn't. If you start giving rapists death, you'll start seeing a lot more rape/murders. And on another level, no matter how life-changing rape is, death kills you and you die.

[Rain Monkey]

While I'm not opposed to the death penalty, or even opposed to applying it to rapists, I think that the whole paradigm of harsher punishments as the only approach to crime has just not produced the desired results. Unless the desired results include new prisons in key congressional districts.

Maybe if we could look at what is happening in peoples lives and minds when they become violent, we could start to treat violence as a fairly predictable result of set of conditions both around the criminal and within the brain functioning.

What I'm saying is that we might have better results at reducing crime if we focused on preventing it rather than punishment after the fact.

There is the danger of sounding like some kind of liberal here, which I am proudly. But let me be clear that I hold criminals responsible for their own actions. At the same time, conditions that lead rational people to lose hope for themselves, and conditions that fail to intervene for the treatment of irrational people, those are conditions where crime rates go up.

[Johnny Slick]

While I'm not opposed to the death penalty, or even opposed to applying it to rapists,I am. I think the death penalty for rapists is a stupid, stupid idea. To me, the death penalty ought to be reserved for people like Gary Ridgeway. We already have a couple states in the union (Virginia, Texas, and Louisiana, if you're keeping score) that go overboard with the death penalty for murder. I can only imagine how many black people they would kill in the name of rape.

And I will repeat: rape is not as bad as murder. It's not even close. As bad as the psychological effects of rape are, the psychological effects of murder are that you never, ever get to think again about anything.

[Rain Monkey]

What I was trying to do was keep the discussion on the central theme of this thread, which concerns brutality in prison with prison rape as the most graphic, iconic feature of prison brutality.

Now, if we want to digress into a question of which is worse rape or death, then I think we should look at the lives of rape victims after their assault as well as how many rape victims fight at risk of their own death. Which would indicate their prioritization of rape vs. death, and their own death at that, not prioritization of their own rape vs. the death of the perpetrator. A theoretical debate about which is worse, rape or death, conducted by people who have never been raped and never been dead is just mental masturbation.

Your core assumption is that nothing is worse than death, and I do not think that that is an assumption that we can all agree on. Further, you would not just apply that prioritization for yourself, but require it of others. If you would prefer to be beat until your ribs, arms and legs are broken and have your teeth knocked out with a piece of steel pipe so that your attacker can use your bloody mouth than to kill the psychopath attacking you, well maybe that makes you a better person than me. I would hope to be able to kill the bastard or see him put to death.

But if we are going to digress, I really wanted to address brentandrews thesis that prison rape proves that America is the Great Satan, that it justifies the violent overthrow of the federal government, and that discharged, violated convicts will provide an army of the aggrieved.

Now, it is not that I'm opposed to rebellion in all cases. It is just that I don't think that this is the case to justify it. The case for the overthrow of the government would be where the government is corrupted to the extent that it no longer has the consent of the governed. It is for just this eventuality that the founding fathers wrote the Second Amendment to the Constitution, to reserve to the citizens the means of rebellion. And the founding fathers also gave the conditions that justify the overthrow of an unjust government in the Declaration of Independence.

But the present brutality of our prisons does represent the desires of the people as represented through our political process. In this case changing minds about the role of prisons in our society, and the role of punishment as the sole component of crime prevention, is the appropriate response.

In some future discussion thread I think it would be interesting to discuss the similarities between the armed right-wing militia groups, the Black Panthers of the sixties, and the American Indian Movement of the seventies.

[caustic meatloaf]

Um, thanks for your support. Although I'm not sure I follow your logic.


The religious right claims to care about the unborn, yet is unwilling to do anything that would prevent babies from growing up to be hardened criminals. In the new book "Freakonomics," the argument is made, pretty convincingly, that the drop in crime in the late nineties was a delayed effect of the Roe v. Wade decision. That once abortion became widely available, unwanted children became less numerous, and twenty years later crime rates dropped.


OK, the religious right is absolutely hypocritical, that's true. However, I think that it is a weak arguement to state that legalization of abortion = lower crime rates. There are so many other factors in the reduction of crime in the 90s, that any statistical trend would be better explained as the result of THOSE causes than that of abortion. Increased economic stability, The concerted effort to attack crime in inner cities and gentrification are all more likely causes for the crime decline.

Furthermore, the wellfare state grants low-income families more aid if they have children, and there is no limit to that aid. Furthermore, it does not pay for abortions or for contraceptives; these need to be paid by the mother. So many wellfare moms and families choose to NOT abort their unborn children, because they stand to make more money by having them come to full term.

[Johnny Slick]

What I was trying to do was keep the discussion on the central theme of this thread, which concerns brutality in prison with prison rape as the most graphic, iconic feature of prison brutality.

Now, if we want to digress into a question of which is worse rape or death, then I think we should look at the lives of rape victims after their assault as well as how many rape victims fight at risk of their own death. Which would indicate their prioritization of rape vs. death, and their own death at that, not prioritization of their own rape vs. the death of the perpetrator. A theoretical debate about which is worse, rape or death, conducted by people who have never been raped and never been dead is just mental masturbation.No, sorry... saying that rape is just as bad or worse than murder is not thinking things through. If it really is worse, why don't more rape victims kill themselves? I'm sorry if that comes off as insensitive, but I feel in turn that you are being caustically dismissive of life vs. death.

As for prison rape, it's probably one of those things that the prison guards can't stop because there are too many prisoners in our system. I am not saying "go ahead and let it happen", and I am sure that in many cases officials just look the other way because they are after all just criminals (of course prisoners have rights; I'm just displaying the opinions of the higher-ups), but more than anything else I think that in many cases prisons are, ironically enough, inadequately policed.

[Rain Monkey]

No, sorry... saying that rape is just as bad or worse than murder is not thinking things through. If it really is worse, why don't more rape victims kill themselves? I'm sorry if that comes off as insensitive, but I feel in turn that you are being caustically dismissive of life vs. death.

Why don't you do the research and let us know what you find on suicide rates for rape victims. Add in statistical increases in accidental deaths, and stress related diseases. And give us a chart on non-fatal quality of life matters like satisfaction in romantic relationships and parenting skills.

I do not have statistics but I have a very strong feeling that suicide and increases in accidental death rates are astonishingly high for rape victims.

I think that you are being caustically dismissive of the extent of the damage caused as a result of having your body taken from you by a violent predator, loss of control of the outcome, and recognition that the predator is motivated by rage at what you represent to him, and gratified by your pleas and agony.

And the knowledge afterward, that no matter how much time has passed or what kind of life you can put together, it could happen to you again.

I do not think that it is being dismissive of the value of life to suggest that some rapists under some circumstances should be forcibly removed from among the living, even if their victim survived.

At the same time I oppose the death penalty for reasons of widespread prosecutorial misconduct, racial bias, and bureaucratic inefficiency. That is to say, I oppose the death penalty but not because there are no cases where people deserve to be killed. And I think that in some cases rapists fit that category.

As to the problem that prison rape represents, I see it as graphically symbolic of the brutality of the present prison system. If you are convicted of a crime from selling marijuana to cancer patients to, well, rape, or murder, then control of your body is taken from you by the state. Your body cavities are searched by guards for drugs.

The guards are not just too busy, they are changed by the experience of being prison guards. Look at the Stanford prison experiment: http://www.prisonexp.org/

But all of this is completely beside my main point, which is that our present system of crime prevention is completely focused on increasing the severity of punishments after the fact. This is also linked to the ascendant brand of religion which has little use for the concepts of reform, charity, or mercy.

One hundred years from now there will probably be crimes committed by people who have not been born yet, what steps could we take in the mean time to prevent those crimes. I think that you have to get out of thinking about police and prisons after the fact and start thinking about opportunities for all young people, education, and social aspects of community.

[Johnny Slick]

Why don't you do the research and let us know what you find on suicide rates for rape victims. Add in statistical increases in accidental deaths, and stress related diseases. And give us a chart on non-fatal quality of life matters like satisfaction in romantic relationships and parenting skills.I don't have to look them up to know that they aren't 100%.

[Rain Monkey]

Socrates chose death before banishment from his beloved city. Is there nothing whatever that you would value more highly than merely extending the duration of existence, no matter how vile?

[Rane Stone]

Murderers and Rapist who are repeat offenders should face surgical castration.

It will take away their man hood and they won't even be able to jerk off or fuck each other because they will be put on the same cell block with each other.

As for the women offenders...there are ways to do this as well, but I will spare all of us the details.

[greencassie]

want to see prision rape--watch OZ

[Sweet Jane]

I am. I think the death penalty for rapists is a stupid, stupid idea. To me, the death penalty ought to be reserved for people like Gary Ridgeway. We already have a couple states in the union (Virginia, Texas, and Louisiana, if you're keeping score) that go overboard with the death penalty for murder. I can only imagine how many black people they would kill in the name of rape.

And I will repeat: rape is not as bad as murder. It's not even close. As bad as the psychological effects of rape are, the psychological effects of murder are that you never, ever get to think again about anything.

Because I am quite sure none of us can offend any dead people, I think a little civility towards rape victims would be in order. As I have gathered you haven't been raped or murdered, may I suggest that you take the discussion a little less personally and maybe a little more thoughtfully.

My opinion is that justice in our country has never been created for the victims of the crimes committed. It is there for a jury of the victim's peers, and neighbors, so they might sleep at night.
Although I would never imply that murder is anything, but a heinous crime; death will come at one time for all of us. And though living through the death of a loved one is enormously painful, none of us really do know if death is the worst thing to happen or if life provides us more torture than we realize.

1 in 4 women are raped by age 18 and 1 in 6 men. Ask around, perhaps they can let you know how much pain is involved in the significantly brutal crime of rape.

(I am, however, very much against the death penalty, in all circumstances.)

[Neil]

Because I am quite sure none of us can offend any dead people, I think a little civility towards rape victims would be in order.
I agree with everything you've said, but I'm unsure how Johnny's comments were "uncivil" toward rape victims. Please explain.

[Sweet Jane]

Perhaps consideration would be a better word. I do not find Jonny Slick's comments uncivil technically, however they are written with a fairly thoughtless tone.
Since the discussion has led to psychological problems of victims of a criminal act, I think that treading thoughtfully would be best. These are people who inhabit at least 20% of our lives. Rape victims are never far away and I would like to treat them with respect and consideration.

[Neil]

I understood what you meant, and believe me, I do know the statistics... the statistics in people close to me are actually significantly higher. I simply fail to see the "thoughtless tone" you seem to perceive and would like to understand what it was he said that led you to feel that way.

[Gomezticator]

Johnny Slick's point is that rapists shouldn't be put to death because unlike murder, rape victims (unless they subsequently become murder victims) live to see another day. Whatever psychological damage there may be, a rape victim lives on. Murder victims' lives are OVER. Insensitive or otherwise, the point within is that the death penalty for rapists doesn't fit the crime the way it does for murder.

Let's discuss the point instead of condemning him for saying rape is less than murder. Okay, it was insensitive. Great. I say move on.

[Sweet Jane]

I simply fail to see the "thoughtless tone" you seem to perceive and would like to understand what it was he said that led you to feel that way.

I feel in my first post I highlighted what I found thoughtless. I am not sure I can explain it throughly and like Gomezticator said, it's not really the point.

Johnny Slick's point is that rapists shouldn't be put to death because unlike murder, rape victims (unless they subsequently become murder victims) live to see another day. Whatever psychological damage there may be, a rape victim lives on. Murder victims' lives are OVER. Insensitive or otherwise, the point within is that the death penalty for rapists doesn't fit the crime the way it does for murder.

This is the arguement that most intrigues me and I most disagree with. It is very childlike and simplistic. The black/white viewing of death is: Death is Bad, Life is Good. Here life is defined by an easy definition of: the victim still has a heart beat. I use this definition because both Jonny Slick and Gomezticator have repeatedly said psychological damage is irrelavant to the arguement.
(Now I don't want to get lost in a tangent as psychological damage being PTSD vs. a coma.)

My question is: Why is Death worse? What in your mind says Death bad, Life good? How does one come to such a conclusion?

The idea that the death penalty only logically applies to murders, I also find simplistic. If I were in any postion to attach the Death Penalty to any crime, it would be the sexual/physical abuse against children. To me, we have responsibilities to one another, that is why we have laws that everyone agrees upon. Children have no say over these rules and very little say over anything in their life. In my mind as one's rights decrease, society's responsibility increases.
But this arguement only follows if one does not find death inherently wrong/bad and life isn't inherently right/good.

[Gomezticator]

You can't recover from death.

[Tuesday's child]

It's true that you can't recover from death (nor, I assume, can you suffer after it), but we're still comparing apples to oranges. In fact, even comparing the suffering of one rape victim to another's is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Unlike death, there are no criteria for measuring pain and suffering in any meaningful way between different people. We know exactly when to call someone dead, but doctors and nurses are taught that a patient's pain is what the patient says it is. Sure, they may have you rate your pain on a scale of 1-10, but everybody's scale is calibrated only to themselves. It's impossible to do anything but GUESS which fate for someone else YOU think would be worse. That is, unless you want to ask them what they think (which, indeed is done at least sometimes on Death Row--though it may not have any bearing on their outcome--and the criminals themselves don't all agree with each other on whether it's better to fight for life on Death Row or to just get it overwith and die).

Also, it does not follow that if a person suffers something (like rape) & they percieve it as being worse than death, then they will inevidably kill themselves. Not only do we all experience/ percieve pain and suffering differently from one another, we also respond to it differently. Psychology, moral beliefs, values, context and personal convictions must be taken into account. Some people would NEVER kill themselves under any circumstances, and some people who would simply can't.

Most folks reserve their support of the death penalty for the most heinous criminals guilty of the least forgivable crimes (or criminal patterns of behavior). That makes sense--given how undeniably irreversible executions are--even though we don't always agree on who's the worst of the worst (the WOW). But it's much more complicated than deciding on who's the WOW. There are those who want the WOW killed because they think that's the worst possible punishment, and there are those who argue that lethal injection is simultaneously a cheaper and more humane treatment of "life-ers" (people who are certain to be incarcerated for the remainder of their lives) than prolonging their miserable lives in constant subjection of the hostile prison environment. I think most of the latter group favors the death penalty as a humane act when there's really no hope for Mr/ Ms WOW, but I'm sure there are also some who oppose it because they want to keep the WOW alive so they can suffer more.

I have mixed feelings about whether it's generally worse to kill 'em or keep 'em alive (speaking only of people who actually deserve to be on Death Row which, again, we're having some trouble agreeing on), but I'm against the death penalty as long as there's a pervasive, consistent bias on who gets it vs. who doesn't for the same types of crimes/ convictions. That's before even bringing up all the cases of prisoners who've been proven innocent with DNA evidence years after their convictions.

And then there's semantics. I personally believe that the word "justice", at least as it's used in these days of GWB & the Axis of Evil, is too easily confused with revenge and/or violence to be of any use. At least it shouldn't have such positive connotations. In a truely just world, everyone would have a fair shot in life. Groups of people wouldn't be oppressed/ resented, etc., but that's not what people are talking about when they say that justice must be done. They usually mean revenge must be had. Now I'm not an outright passifist; even being against the death penalty I still want some people dead and/or badly beaten (I won't mention any names besides GWB). I'm also hip to the latest research indicating that our brains are probably hard-wired such that getting revenge triggers the pleasure center (though that doesn't make it right). But I'm totally against using words that don't mean what they're supposed to mean. It's confusing enough without all the word-bending. The goal of the justice system (though it'll never be 100% attainable) SHOULD be to reduce/eliminate wrongdoings, not to exact revenge or occupy a country with oil by killing, torturing & using bombs.

All of which rightfully belongs in a separate thread, since the original topic was prison rape. I don't think Rain Monkey's chosen topic was adequately discussed by anyone except Rain Monkey, who did so with enough intelligent eloquence I suppose we didn't feel we needed to respond to most of it. But since I wrote all that other shit, I feel like I ought to talk about prison rape.

I'm against it, as I'm against all rape. And I think there's a whole lot that could be done to prevent it from happening so much, particularly in a controlled prison environment. Not enough time/staff is not an excuse, nor is it believable. I don't see prison guards calling for more staffing or a change in how things are run, and 42% of the reported sex offenses against prisoners was reportedly done by staff. The tacit age-old tradition of turning a blind eye to prisoners "punishing" prisoners is not right, and it shouldn't continue. So I guess somebedy does need to decide on a proper punishment for prisoners who rape while in prison--in order to stop it. Putting them on death row would be idiotic, especially when we're not doing our level best to prevent the rape from happening. Castration? Hmm, it's an interesting idea for the really uncontrollable offenders. It hits both the revenge and prevention buttons. Besides, it sounds like it could be more effective (at reducing prison rape) than threatening to keep them in prison EVEN LONGER. Ultimately, though, we've gotta start acknowledging/caring that prison rape is happening before it's ever gonna change.

[Rain Monkey]

I had almost given up on this thread, as having any hope of discussing the core paradigm of our present prison system and the way that prison rape most graphically depicts that system.

I'm really sick of the debate about which is worse, rape or death, the holocaust or slavery, Hitler or Stalin, having a pencil shoved into your eye or getting kicked in the nuts ... ooh I hate it when that happens.

My original concern was that fact that our state departments of reform have departed from reform as a goal. Or crime prevention. The political history of who can be tougher on crime has resulted in a prison system that is focused on keeping people behind bars for as long as possible and under the worst circumstances.

But it appears that this is just not going to be part of the news and opinion beat for the Stranger, because there is no prison on Capital Hill. People from Capital Hill are arrested for smoking or dealing mary-jane, taken to 4th and James, and put on a bus. Years later they take a bus back to Capital Hill. What happens to them while they are away is of no concern to the Stranger.

[greencassie]

just watch OZ to see some prison rape :-(