I wouldn't count on the suggestion that more men are raped than women
now, but below a realistic scenario is described which certainly
augments the numbers to that effect. I might suggest that rapes, along
with general violence, would be much less likely if they had only one
inmate per cell, but can't expect the system to change for the better.
The system wants as many inmates as it can get, after all. Once the
system collapses, and they're forced to release countless, let's hope
it's the victims, rather than the perpetrators who are given parole.
The second story is focused on female youths in detention. We had been
discussing genes,environment, and epigenetics, and I found the stats
presented were rather similar, though not quite as bad, to percentages
found in history of early abuse in mental health patients.
*Natalia
*
Men Outnumber Women Among American Rape Victims
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/men-outnumber-women-among-american-rape-victims/
James Joyner <http://outsidethebeltway.com> *ยท* Sunday, February 5, 2012
Statistics are notoriously slippery, but the figures that suggest
that violence has been disappearing in the United States contain a
blind spot so large that to cite them uncritically, as the major
papers do, is to collude in an epic con. Uncounted in the official
tallies are the hundreds of thousands of crimes that take place in
the country's prison system, a vast and growing residential network
whose forsaken tenants increasingly bear the brunt of America's
propensity for anger and violence.
Crime has not fallen in the United States---it's been shifted. Just
as Wall Street connived with regulators to transfer financial risk
from spendthrift banks to careless home buyers, so have federal,
state, and local legislatures succeeded in rerouting criminal risk
away from urban centres and concentrating it in a proliferating web
of hyperhells. The statistics touting the country's crime-reduction
miracle, when juxtaposed with those documenting the quantity of rape
and assault that takes place each year within the correctional
system, are exposed as not merely a lie, or even a damn lie---but as
the single most shameful lie in American life.
From 1980 to 2007, the number of prisoners held in the United
States quadrupled to 2.3 million, with an additional 5 million on
probation or parole.
[...]
Victims in juvenile facilities, or facilities for women, have an
even tougher time: usually it's the guards, rather than the inmates,
who coerce them into sex. The guards tell their victims that no one
will believe them, and that complaining will only make things worse.
This is sound advice: even on the rare occasions when juvenile
complaints are taken seriously and allegations are substantiated,
only half of confirmed abusers are referred for prosecution, only a
quarter are arrested, and only 3 percent end up getting charged with
a crime.
In January, prodded in part by outrage over a series of articles in
the New York Review of Books, the Justice Department finally
released an estimate of the prevalence of sexual abuse in
penitentiaries. The reliance on filed complaints appeared to
understate the problem. For 2008, for example, the government had
previously tallied 935 confirmed instances of sexual abuse. After
asking around, and performing some calculations, the Justice
Department came up with a new number: 216,000. That's 216,000
victims, not instances. These victims are often assaulted multiple
times over the course of the year. The Justice Department now seems
to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all
rapes committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States
the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes
for men than for women.
America's prison system is a moral catastrophe. The eerie sense of
security that prevails on the streets of lower Manhattan obscures,
and depends upon, a system of state-sponsored suffering as vicious
and widespread as any in human history. Dismantling the system of
American gulags, and holding accountable those responsible for their
operation, presents the most urgent humanitarian imperative of our time.
Progressives lament the growth of private prisons (prisons for
profit). But it's sadism, not avarice, that fuels the country's
prison crisis. Prisoners are not the victims of poor planning (as
other progressive reformers have argued)---they are the victims of
an ideological system that dehumanizes an entire class of human
being and permits nearly infinite violence against it. As much as a
physical space, prisons denote an ethical space, or, more precisely,
a space where ordinary ethics are suspended. Bunk beds, in and of
themselves, are not cruel and unusual. University dorms have bunk
beds, too. What matters is what happens in those beds. In the dorm
room, sex, typically consensual. In prisons, also sex, but often
violent rape. The prisons are "overcrowded," we are told (and, in
fact, courts have ruled). "Overcrowding" is a euphemism for an
authoritarian nightmare.
While the attempt to count the number of rapes in America's prisons is
new, the problem is not. Alas, it's one quite unlikely to go away
because the overwhelming majority of Americans are perfectly happy to
shift the risk of violent crime off our streets and out of our
neighborhoods and into walled communities where people regarded as
little more than vicious animals are housed. That they face a good
chance of being raped while there is variously seen as fodder for jokes,
the wicked getting their just desserts, or collateral damage. It's
virtually inconceivable that political will to do something about the
problem will coalesce any time soon.
/via Jimmy Gerrond
<https://twitter.com/#%21/JimmySky/status/166192202765189120>
/
Invisible Prisoners: Why Are So Many Children, Especially Girls,
Placed in Solitary Confinement?
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/06/18/girls-in-juvenile-justice-an-invisible-population
by Yasmin Vafa <http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/people/yasmin-vafa>, Human
Rights Project for Girls
June 18, 2012 - 10:43pm (Print <http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/print/20028>)
When we hear about solitary confinement, we often imagine it as a form
of extreme punishment inflicted on the most vicious and dangerous
criminals in prison. The last thing you would expect is for this
practice to be inflicted on children.
But it is. All across this country, children are being placed in
solitary for a host of different reasons ranging from 'protection' to
the most minor misbehaviors.
This practice is even more disturbing when you consider the distinct
pathways of girls into the juvenile justice system. We often talk about
the "school-to-prison pipeline" for boys ---but for girls, it is a
totally different narrative, more readily identified as the
"sexual-violence-to prison pipeline." According to the Office of
Juvenile Justice Delinquency and Prevention, approximately 600,000 girls
are arrested <http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/236477.pdf> in the U.S.
annually. Most of these girls
<http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/not-isolated-case> are remanded
for non-violent offenses such as truancy, running away, loitering,
alcohol and substance use, and violations to prior court orders for
non-violent status offenses. Moreover, evidence shows that 73 percent of
girls in juvenile detention
<http://womensissues.about.com/od/girlsteensyoungwomen/a/Girls-In-Juvenile-Justice-System.htm> have
previously suffered some form of physical or sexual abuse. This abuse is
often the factor that propelled the child into the juvenile justice
system, as it is often the abuse that is the root cause of the girls'
running away, becoming truant, substance abuse, etc.
Once inside, girls are forced to maneuver a system that does not address
their specific needs or take into account the complex trauma they have
endured. Family court judges and detention center staff are rarely
provided appropriate trauma training and are generally unaware of the
damaging impact of policies such as strip searches, physical restraints,
and particularly solitary confinement on survivors of physical and
sexual abuse and trauma.
There is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the severe
psychiatric consequences of placing individuals, and particularly
children in solitary confinement. Prisoners who have experienced
solitary confinement have been shown to engage in self-mutilation at
much higher rates than the average population. These prisoners are also
known to attempt or commit suicide more often than those who were not
held in isolation. In fact, studies show that juveniles are 19 times
more likely
<http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/Downloads/Jailing_Juveniles_Take_Action_Kit.pdf> to
kill themselves in isolation than in general population and that
juveniles in general, have the highest suicide rates of all inmates in
jails.
Despite all these facts, when girls in the juvenile justice system
express evidence of or the desire to self harm, the typical response is
to put them in solitary confinement
<http://www.aclu.org/blog/human-rights-prisoners-rights-womens-rights/exposing-secret-punishment-incarcerated-children>.
While these girls are being placed in solitary for their own protection,
there is no consideration given to the fact that such practices deepen
existing trauma. When subjected to isolation, these youth are often
locked down for 23 hours per day
<http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/Downloads/Jailing_Juveniles_Take_Action_Kit.pdf> in
small cells with no natural light. This confinement can last several
days, weeks or even months
<http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/not-isolated-case>, which leads
to severe anxiety, paranoia, and further exacerbation of mental
distress. The ACLU has reported
<http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/strip-searching-and-solitary-confinement-girls-texas-state-school> that
in certain juvenile detention facilities, girls are restrained with
brutal force and are "regularly locked up in solitary confinement --- a
punishment used for minor misbehaviors as well as for girls who express
wanting to hurt themselves."
For example, after conducting interviews with a number of girls
<http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/not-isolated-case> in juvenile
detention, the ACLU uncovered that some of the reasons behind girls'
solitary confinement were as trivial as giving their crying friend a hug
and singing "Happy Birthday." The report goes on to say
<http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/strip-searching-and-solitary-confinement-girls-texas-state-school> that
"[n]ot receiving proper treatment and left alone with their emotions,
many girls are driven to cut themselves, bang their heads against the
concrete walls, and attempt suicide," which often lead detention
facility staff to respond with "physical restraint, pepper spray, and
further solitary confinement." These approaches are simply unacceptable
when you take into account the abuse suffered by the vast majority of
these girls and their dire need for services and interventions.
This week, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Human
Rights, and Civil Rights is holding the first-ever Congressional hearing
on the issue of solitary confinement in U.S. prisons and jails. One of
the issues that we hope is brought to light during this hearing is the
practice of solitary confinement of girls in the juvenile justice
system. Numerous studies show the damaging effects of solitary
confinement on children and particularly children with proven histories
of mental and physical trauma. Due to the fact that such a large
percentage of girls entering juvenile detention have endured sexual
and/or physical trauma, isolation techniques are not an appropriate
disciplinary or protective measure on this vulnerable population of
children. This abuse of abuse victims must stop. It is time to finally
look at this invisible population. A population of girls in need of
services --- not further victimization under the guise of rehabilitation.
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