The Rape of American Prisoners

[swag]

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23690

. . .Fully 80 percent of the sexual abuse reported in the study was committed not by other inmates but by staff. And surprisingly, 95 percent of the youth making such allegations said that they were victimized by female staff. Sixty-four percent of them reported at least one incident of sexual contact with staff in which no force or explicit coercion was used. Staff caught having sex with inmates often claim it's consensual. But staff have enormous control over inmates' lives. They can give inmates privileges, such as extra food or clothing or the opportunity to wash, and they can punish them: everything from beatings to solitary confinement to extended detention. The notion of a truly consensual relationship in such circumstances is grotesque even when the inmate is not a child.

Nationally, however, fewer than half of the corrections officials whose sexual abuse of juveniles is confirmed are referred for prosecution, and almost none are seriously punished. A quarter of all known staff predators in state youth facilities are allowed to keep their positions.<21>

The biggest risk factor found in the study was prior abuse. Some 65 percent of kids who had been sexually assaulted at another corrections facility were also assaulted at their current one. In prison culture, even in juvenile detention, after an inmate is raped for the first time he is considered "turned out," and fair game for further abuse.<22> Eighty-one percent of juveniles sexually abused by other inmates were victimized more than once, and 32 percent more than ten times. Forty-two percent were assaulted by more than one person. Of those victimized by staff, 88 percent had been abused repeatedly, 27 percent more than ten times, and 33 percent by more than one facility employee. Those who responded to the survey had been in their facilities for an average of 6.3 months.

Just as the BJS report on sexual abuse in juvenile detention facilities shows that problems like the ones at Pyote aren't limited to Texas, two previous BJS reports, on the incidence of sexual abuse in adult prisons and jails, show that abuses in juvenile detention are only a small part of a much larger human rights problem in this country. Published in December 2007 and June 2008, these were extensive studies: they surveyed a combined total of 63,817 inmates in 392 different facilities.

. . .

[Mumblefratz]

1. Just sickening nt

[wolfgangmo]

2. That's one thing that I DON"T miss about working at a prison.

We were diligent about getting our number as close to zero as we could but the truth is the guards (even the good ones) can't be everywhere.

Here's an interesting factoid - the problem is MUCH worse in private prisons and less a problem in the government ones (at least the ones not in Texas or Arizona)

[Tutankhamun]

3. I had no idea things were that bad!

I knew that prisoners are forever sexually assaulting each other, but I had no idea that sexual abuse from staff was so enormosly prevalent. That's disgusting. The idea of "consensual" sex with someone who can throw you in solitary and even prolong your incarceration is laughable.

One thing the article didn't mention is the problem of credibility. People aren't likely to believe a prisoner's word over a staff member's. Staff obviously exploits this dynamic.

[Liberty Belle]

4. A friend's daughter got pregnant while in juvenile detention -

With DNA testing it should be easy to prove this sort of abuse. Why is more not done to protect these kids and punish their torturers?