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          Front Page  opinion  dimond

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Hard Time Shouldn't Include a Rape Sentence

By Diane Dimond

          Is anyone out there reading this who condones rape?
        No, of course not. Who in civilized society would believe the violent sexual assault of another person is OK?
        So then, why do we allow the brutal, repeated rape of our prisoners?
        We've known about the problem for decades. We read about the sexual victimization of inmates in books and newspapers, we see it depicted on TV and in the movies. Yet somehow it's been allowed to continue. These attacks are both prisoner-on-prisoner and guard-on-prisoner, and a majority of times the perpetrator goes unpunished. Why is that?
        Do we think that once a person is convicted of a crime he or she loses all constitutional rights? Do you believe prisoners should be allowed to pursue justice if they're victimized behind bars? If your answer is no, would you change your mind if the sexual attack happened to a prisoner who is a juvenile?
        Heavy questions. Their answers go to define who we are as a people.
        Back in 2003 Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed into law, the Prison Rape Elimination Act. A special body was created to study the problem. Think about that for a minute. We had to have a special Act of Congress before we, as human beings, stood up and said, "You know, prison rape just isn't right."
        Even with the presidential act it took until 2006 for the state of Vermont to take steps to actually criminalize prison staffer's sexual attacks on inmates, the last state in the union to do so. And it wasn't until 2007 that Texas finally agreed to investigate hundreds of complaints of sexual victimization of juvenile offenders at Texas Youth Commission facilities.
        Look, I'm for prisoners doing hard time if the crime commands it. But we've been demanding better treatment for caged animals lately (think the Michael Vick dog-fighting case) than we have for caged humans.
        A 2007 study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that more than 60,000 inmates are sexually attacked every year, more often by a guard than another prisoner. In fact, there were a surprising number of cases of male-staff-on-male-inmate sexual assaults.
        The most frequent victims are inmates who are short, young, gay or female. The study also found a real lack of any meaningful punishment for this very obvious crime. Think about the toll of broken human lives we then put back on the street.
        There are cases from states all across America. Here are three examples:
        In Colorado last year a prison guard accused of raping a female inmate was allowed to plead guilty to a mere misdemeanor and got just 60 days in jail. This year a federal judge hearing the victim's civil suit was so disgusted with the leniency of the sentence that he imposed $1.3 million in damages for the inmate. Three other female inmates in Colorado have pending civil lawsuits alleging they, too, were forced by state Department of Corrections employees to perform sex acts. Each prisoner seeks $150 million in damages.
        The state of Michigan determined that male employees of its Department of Corrections had acted so egregiously over the years that it established a $100 million fund for victimized inmates to draw from. So far more than 900 prisoners have come forward seeking money for alleged sexual misconduct inside Michigan prisons.
        In Oregon, the state is facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by five female prisoners who claim they endured years of sexual abuse by a guard and other Corrections Department employees at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville. If the state loses the case it's a safe bet prisoners in other Oregon facilities will feel empowered to file their own suits.
        Some allegations may be not be true, of course, but even if half or a third of the 60,000 reports per year are viable, that's too many sexual assaults being perpetrated against too many people. Prisoners have to serve their sentences, but those sentences do not come with rape attached.
        The problem should not be viewed as an economic one, although states could save millions if they more closely monitored their prison guard's behavior. It should be seen through a moral and ethical lens.
        Six years after the Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed, its commission has finally released an official report. Among the recommendations: better training for staff in recognizing assaults, addressing prison overcrowding, providing proper medical and mental health care for victims and harsher penalties for staff who engage in assault or allow it to happen.
        Gee, it took us all this time to figure that out? Did we figure prisoners are just throw-away citizens, people without civil rights?
        That's not the American way.
        www.DianeDimond.net — e-mail to Diane@DianeDimond.net.