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There's Nothing Funny About Prison Rape
According to an article in Salon, “Hundreds of teen-agers are raped or sexually assaulted during their stays in the country’s juvenile detention facilities, and many of them are victimized repeatedly.”
Rape Behind Bars
A new federal report shows that the nation’s prisons and jails have a long way to go before they comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
Guantanamo Bay Could Soon Be Rape Free
On May 17, 2012 the same day the DOJ released its standards, President Obama issued a memo explicitly specifying that “all agencies with Federal confinement facilities that are not already subject to the Department of Justice’s final [PREA] rule to work with the Attorney General [are required] to propose, within 120 days of the date of this memorandum, any rules or procedures necessary to satisfy the requirements of PREA.”
Halfway House Reform Must be Embraced
Following reports of rampant sexual abuse in New Jersey’s community corrections centers, many local residents were justifiably horrified. But these revelations were, sadly, predictable. In facilities with no oversight, poorly trained staff and bad housing policies, sexual violence is all but certain to thrive.
New federal rules may strain county jails
Ohio law enforcement officials discuss the costs and challenges associated with PREA standards compliance.
Nightmare of Prison Rape
David Person wrote his reactions to the PREA standards and the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Sexual Victimization In Prisons And Jails Reported By Inmates, 2008-09.
Prison Rape: So an inmate’s safety is too expensive?
This blog entry in The Good Men Project reacts to the viewpoint that PREA standards compliance is too costly.
Eliminating prison rape
Now that the Justice Department has promulgated the final standards to try to eliminate prison rape, we need to make them work. Powerful challenges lie in the realms of perception and practice.
The greatest impediment to doing away with the culture of sexual abuse in prisons is actually a belief: that it will be simple to achieve. There can be no substitute for three major steps that go beyond any written standards: well-conceived, thorough training at all levels; adequately financed renovation of old prisons and jails that lack effective supervision; and a broad-based campaign to raise public expectations to meet those of Congress when it passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act almost a decade ago.
Prison Rape Elimination Act
Prior to this cries many times fell on deaf ears and it was an aspect of prisons that rarely got a spotlight PREA provisions are a critical step in trying to identify baseline data into this unspoken phenomenon and more consistent and accurate tracking and data can only help serve to increase inmate safety in this regard.
Can it ever be totally eliminated? I hypothesize no, based upon the fact that jails and prisons are volatile places that house many predators and the modern day correctional staff I have personally witnessed go above and beyond duty to provide excellent care, custody and control. As in any profession or any inmate population a few bad apples unfortunately tarnish the reputation of the many that serve dutifully.
It’s time for more training for everyone: The Sheriff's View
I mentioned that I was doing my online Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) training today. I mentioned this PREA act a few columns ago as the newest federal idea on how to make our working lives harder. This is the one that supposedly will not require any money spent on our part to implement. It would have been nice to start out small and expand for the next several years instead of the major avalanche landing on our heads with a big boom.
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The PREA Resource Center provides training and technical assistance to adult and juvenile corrections and law enforcement agencies seeking to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse in confinement.
Resources for survivors and their families are available here.
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