Sick, sick, sick. Ezra links to a report from Human Rights Watch on prison rape, including the first-person account of a man doing time for DUI offenses who was serially gang-raped and essentially told by prison officials that they couldn’t (read “wouldn’t”) do anything about it. Their best advice? Find a tough guy you can tolerate having sex with and arrange to be his bitch. If throwing someone into a lion pit unarmed counts as a death sentence, then there’s no real way around the conclusion that the American justice system is knowingly sentencing people to routine rape—itself a drawn out form of capital punishment given the prevalence of HIV in many prisons.
Tom Palmer had a solid op-ed on this topic back in 2001, and Ezra has a follow-up. There would be massive public outcry if the courts were openly sentencing people to repeated rape, but do it with a wink, a nod, a cluck of the tongue, and a sad shrug, and we seem not to care much.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Brian Moore // Feb 12, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Isn’t this the ultimate test for the surveillance state? Put up cameras in every inch of the prison. (Don’t they have that already?) Watch camera tapes. Prosecute people who commit these crimes. How is this not simple? I don’t mind paying more tax money to ensure that prisons aren’t enabling even more crime on their own grounds.
What I don’t get is how this can happen in what should be the most controlled, surveilled situation on the planet — a high security prison. There’s only one explanation for why people can commit crimes there — it’s being ignored by prison administrators.
It’s disgusting that this should be an issue.
2 sewing machine and umbrella // Feb 12, 2007 at 5:23 pm
You mean “prison rape,” of course.
3 Anonymous // Feb 21, 2007 at 6:08 pm
i am a 18 year old gay male and everyday i pray to get seduced
by an older male i wanna suck a dick so bad right now
and i will gladly satesfy any of those sex deprived men
4 PharmaMedics // May 28, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Check best price’s in online shop.