When rape is a joke

[Guest guest]

r

Fri, 12 Aug 2005 16:52:19 +1000 (EST)

When rape is a joke

 

 

http://news./s/usatoday/20050811/cm_usatoday/whenrapeisajoke;_ylt=ApWx3\

fpVGD_zG7y3s.iQAMas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3YWFzYnA2BHNlYwM3NDI-

 

 

When rape is a joke Thu Aug 11, 7:13 AM ET

 

 

 

Making jokes at the expense of rape victims is

intolerable to decent people - except when the victim

happens to be incarcerated. Then, it seems, hardly

anyone cares - about the comedy, or the underlying

brutality.

 

 

Comedians feel free to crack wise. Prosecutors and

police use the threat of the prospect of prison rape

as leverage to win confessions and plea bargains.

 

 

No one cares enough to have developed a reliable

estimate of sexual assaults in the nation's prisons

and jails. A recent Justice Department report found

2,100 substantiated cases of sexual assault out of

8,210 formal complaints filed in 2004.

 

 

The report's authors concede that's a gross

underestimate. Most assaults go unreported because

inmates fear reprisals from their attackers and doubt

that prison guards will protect them. Worse, sexual

assaults and illicit contact at juvenile prisons are

10 times the rate at adult lockups, the report said.

 

 

Human rights groups cite a 2000 survey published in

The Prison Journal that found almost 10% of the

nation's 2.1 million inmates are raped each year.

Officials of the American Correctional Association

estimate that 1% of inmates might be assaulted.

 

 

Either figure is outrageous. Tolerating rape with an

indifferent shrug, or smirk, announces that officials

aren't in control of their facilities. The public's

complacent attitude - that assaults are inevitable and

that inmates deserve their fate - prevents reform.

 

 

True, some victims may be vicious thugs themselves.

But half of all prisoners are jailed for non-violent

crimes. Victims are typically the most vulnerable -

young, non-violent, first-time offenders who are

small, weak, gay or effeminate, according to Human

Rights Watch. Rape helps turn them away from

rehabilitation and toward violent crime.

 

 

Rates of HIV are at least four times as high

inside prison as outside, making forced sex a

potential death sentence. Stephen Donaldson, the late

president of the group Stop Prison Rape, died after

being infected with HIV. He had been gang-raped in a

Washington, D.C., jail. Other inmates have committed

suicide after assaults, the group says.

 

 

Prosecuting rapes in prison, as elsewhere, is

difficult because cases often come down to one

inmate's word against another's. Even so, authorities

need to protect the vulnerable by making sure they

don't share cells with predators and complaints are

investigated seriously, not dismissed as " lovers'

quarrels. "

 

 

Prison rape is not a joke. It's a crime. Late-night

comics may not recognize that, but the criminal

justice system should.