Inmate Rape
By Frank Curreri
Originally published in The Salt Lake Tribune, December 16, 2001
When Charles Turner was first sent to prison in 1963, he did not know that fighting off rapists would be part of his punishment.
The convicted burglar learned that lesson while taking a shower one day at the Utah State Prison.
"I didn't see them," Turner, who is black, said of his white attackers. "It was three of them. I got raped . . . But what can you do? They saw someone who was young, didn't know what was going on, and took advantage of it . . . . As long as they have prisons, they'll happen."
Recent studies by Human Rights Watch and Prison Journal magazine estimate that at least one-fifth of the nation's 2 million inmates have either been raped or forced to perform sex acts during incarceration. If those findings—based on interviews with inmates—are accurate, about 1,100 of Utah's 5,600 prisoners have been sexually assaulted behind bars.
Rapes against women have roused activists into "Take Back the Streets" marches and demands for legal reform, from increased prosecution and punishment to laws that ban questions in court about a victim's sexual history. But the plight of prisoners who suffer sexual assaults in prison—mostly men—has sparked no public outrage, advocates for inmates complain.
Carol Gnade, director of the Utah chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU], says Americans are apathetic toward prisoners, regardless of how horrifying their confinement may be.
"I remember talking to someone once about an inmate who was in for writing bad checks," Gnade said. "I mentioned that the inmate could be raped in prison. So this person said, 'Well, that'll teach him! He won't come out and write bad checks again!' And there's just so much of that mentality out there. People really don't care."
Hoping to put prison rape on the country's agenda, the ACLU is poised to begin a national advertising blitz aimed at convincing prisoners who have been raped to come forward, setting the stage for a possible class-action lawsuit, Gnade said.
But Utah State Prison Warden Clint Friehl and veteran guard Capt. William LaBounty consider the rape estimates by inmate advocacy groups to be absurdly inflated. As proof, administrators point to their own numbers: 57 inmates since 1997 have complained of sexual abuse by another prisoner, according to records kept by the Utah Department of Corrections. Five of the victims, including a staff nurse, were women.
What's more, they say, only 22 Utah prisoners during the past three years have been admitted to the infirmary for rape analysis. Twenty of them were men.
LaBounty, like many of his peers, blames Hollywood movies such as "The Shawshank Redemption" for the widespread public perception that rape is epidemic in prison.
"I would say about 20 percent of inmates, at one time or another, participate in consensual sex while in prison," said LaBounty, a former sex crimes investigator at the Utah State Prison. "But 20 percent being raped? No. I would say that [figure] is way, way high. I think 5 percent would be high."
But prison officials concede rapes in prison, like other rapes, are underreported. Inmates wrestle with feelings of humiliation and embarrassment common to other rape victims, but with the added fear that reporting a sexual assault by another prisoner would brand them as a "snitch"—a reputation in prisons that can be fatal.
When assaulted prisoners do report the crime to authorities, prison rapists are rarely taken to court. Not one Utah prisoner has been prosecuted for sexually assaulting another inmate in the past two years.
Brendan McCullagh, a Salt Lake County prosecutor, recalls only three prison rape cases forwarded to his office in the past two years for possible charges. No charges were filed, McCullagh said, due to a lack of evidence and the victims' refusal to testify in court, spurred by a fear of reprisals.
Still, skeptics argue there is no way rape could thrive in prisons unless the guards exercised deliberate indifference to such crimes and their victims.
"You've got to look at the incentive for the guards" to intervene, said Deborah Rhode, a professor at Stanford Law School who has criticized the way administrators have handled sex crimes committed in prison.
"What's in it for them to get involved?" she asks. "Why would they do that? It's safer to do nothing. You'd just as soon not provoke someone who could be dangerous to you."
Neve Gordon, a professor of politics and government at Ben Gurion University in Israel, makes even stronger allegations. In a September editorial to the National Catholic Reporter, Gordon alleged prison administrators tend to view rape "as an effective, albeit ruthless, mechanism of inmate control."
Indeed, Human Rights Watch researchers found that prison rape victims who turn to guards for help often do so in vain. Guards may dismiss their allegation as a lovers' quarrel, or feel no sympathy for a convict who becomes a victim and begs for help, researchers reported.
Yet Turner, who was interviewed from the Utah State Prison with a guard nearby, said he believes guards at the Utah State Prison will assist victims. The real problem, he says, is inadequate staffing levels. "Those types of things happen all the time," Turner said of rapes at the prison. "No one was guarding the showers when I got raped. How's one or two [guards] going to watch over a couple hundred people all the time?"
LaBounty agrees there are too few sets of eyes to monitor too many prisoners at the Utah State Prison. Most sex crimes happen in medium- or minimum-security sections of the prison, where prisoner cells are unlocked from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Inmates, many of them coming and going to jobs, education or drug classes, move around freely.
LaBounty estimated there might be two guards on most shifts to supervise 144 medium-security inmates.
"You cannot be at all places at all times," he said. "Our presence is severely limited. We do not have the staff to keep the prison under control optimally. I could use twice the staff. But it's all that we can afford. We do an excellent job with what we have."
Corrections officials attempt to prevent rapes and other assaults by screening new prisoners before choosing a cellmate for them. Based on criminal history and a psychological profile, Utah inmates are placed in one of three categories: Kappas, the most aggressive; Omegas, relatively neutral; and Sigmas, those who are prone to become victims.
But, officials concede, attempts to keep Kappas and Omegas apart are far from foolproof. Even a section filled with more docile inmates, Friehl noted, will have a hierarchy with dominators and the dominated.
Inmates who run the greatest risk of being raped are those doing time for rape or molesting children, or younger inmates and loners with no allies to watch their backs. Gay inmates or those who exhibit feminine characteristics—longer hair, a thin frame or a high-pitched voice—also fit the typical victim profile, Friehl said.
Race also plays a role: Victims and assailants are often different races, he said.
Inmate advocates want changes, from legal reforms to make it easier for inmate rape victims to sue guards and prisons, to sensitivity training for guards. Reform, however, is a tough sell to many who believe that prisons are too much like country clubs, that life behind bars isn't sufficiently harsh.
"We send people to prison as punishment—not for punishment," said L. Kay Gillespie, a sociology and criminal justice professor at Weber State University. "But I don't think most people look at it like that."
