Prison Rape Is No Joke
By Vincent Schiraldi and Mariam M. Bell
Originally published in The Washington Post, June 13, 2002
Historic legislation was introduced this week to combat the epidemic of prison rape—a scourge that is estimated to affect some 175,000 Americans annually. Normally fodder for stand-up comics, prison rape is in fact one of the principal untreated human rights abuses in America today.
According to extensive research in numerous prisons, nearly one-quarter of all prisoners fall victim to sexual pressuring, attempted sexual assaults and rapes during their incarceration. One in 10 will be the victims of rapes, and two-thirds of those have been victimized, on average, nine times during their incarceration. When young people are incarcerated with adults, they are sexually assaulted five times more frequently than when they are confined with other juveniles.
Rodney Hulin Jr. was one such inmate. Handed his first prison sentence at the age of 17 for setting fire to a neighbor's fence, the inexperienced, slight inmate was repeatedly raped in prison almost immediately upon arrival. He begged authorities to move him to a juvenile facility or otherwise protect him.
Despite the fact that his examination by prison doctors verified that Rodney had been raped, he was put back in general population and essentially told to fend for himself. When he was violated again, Rodney hanged himself in his cell.
A broad coalition is supporting bipartisan legislation to address the epidemic of prison rape. Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and Reps. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) have introduced the Prison Rape Reduction Act of 2002 to address this issue in a manner that is both effective and federalism-friendly. Supporters span the political spectrum, from Charles Colson and Gary Bauer to the NAACP and from Human Rights Watch to the Southern Baptist Convention.
Following extensive research into prison rape, any prison system where the incidence of rape is more than 20 percent greater than the national norm will lose federal prison funds unless its administrator can explain the steps being taken to reduce the incidence of prison rape. All too often, rape serves as a form of prison control, and corrections directors pay no price for high rates of prison rape. The prospect of being hauled off to Washington to explain their systems' abuses will serve as a powerful incentive for previously indifferent prison administrators to this problem to come up with effective solutions.
Another aspect of the bill cuts federal grants to prison accrediting bodies unless they ask serious questions about staff training, screening systems, whistle-blower protection, confidentiality of complaints and other relatively easy and low-cost ways to curb prison rape. Right now, prison systems can have their accreditation yanked for not having enough lawbooks in their libraries, but there are no serious standards specifically aimed at preventing prison rape.
Finally, the act creates a commission modeled on the National Gambling Commission that would conduct comprehensive hearings, culminating in standards for the reduction of prison rape. These standards would apply to all state prison systems within one year, unless states opted out of them through legislation. Within three years of the bill's passage, every state would be forced to address the horror of prison rape.
All of this would be accomplished employing only modest means. The bill imposes no state mandates—something the federal government has every right to do since, by an 8 to 1 vote, the Supreme Court held that deliberate indifference to prison rape violates the Constitution's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
Six hundred thousand inmates—a population larger than the District of Columbia's—will return to our communities next year. While only one in 10 of them will have received drug treatment while incarcerated, nearly one in four will have been raped or pressured to have sex against his will.
Prison rape is no joke. It's a human rights violation of major proportions that needs to be immediately addressed. Because it is counterproductive to return prisoners to society more damaged than when they entered, and because it debases us all to turn a blind eye to anyone's rape, it's time to legislate in this long-neglected arena.
Vincent Schiraldi is president of the Justice Policy Institute. Mariam M. Bell is national director of public policy for the Prison Fellowship Ministries.
