"Where the dividing line occurs between homosexual seduction and paedophilia escapes me. Future generations will look back on this politically confused one with astonishment."
Well Keith, the problem is fourfold. Pedantry, Prejudice, Provincialism and Chauvinism. Homosexual courting is to pedophilia as Heterosexual courting is to pedophilia. The problem with pedantry is that it fills reality with inference and stops perception. The problem with prejudice is that is makes it impossible to live within the present and stops perception. The problem with provincialism is that the group processes of the individual doesn't allow for other paths and the problem with chauvinism is that it's the other three turned toxic for purposes of power. There is simply no basis for your statement above other than either ignorance or wound. The Arts have dealt and does deal with homosexuality through the process of demanding freedom for every individual and (no matter how old or young) the absolute right to say no and stop. This statement you made was beneath your intelligence. It was a betrayal of your place on this list and needless to say as a heterosexual, I was offended. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Friday, June 22, 2012 12:39 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION; D & N Subject: Re: [Futurework] US lower crime rates unrealistic Another other blind spot in statistics is that all handsome boys are approached at one time or another and in one way or another by homosexual men. Where the dividing line occurs between homosexual seduction and paedophilia escapes me. Future generations will look back on this politically confused one with astonishment. Keith At 20:28 21/06/2012, Natalia wrote: 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-vic tims/ James Joyner <http://outsidethebeltway.com> . 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-a n-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-J ustice-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_Act ion_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/exposi ng-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_Act ion_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-confine ment-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-confine ment-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. _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com <http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/>
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