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US: The Shameful Index of Prison Rape

Action on PREA Can End the Violence

By Amy Fettig & Jennifer Wedekind, ACLU National Prison Project | May 17, 2012

Today the Department of Justice released the long-awaited Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) regulations, representing the first time that the federal government has issued national standards to help end sexual abuse in correctional facilities. The regulations are two years late and a lot of harm has been done in their absence, but now that they’ve finally been released they can help us protect important constitutional and human rights and ensure safe and fair correctional facilities that assist prisoners in rehabilitation rather than needlessly brutalizing them. The ACLU supports the Department’s efforts to protect and prevent sexual abuse in places of detention, although we regret that immigration facilities are not yet included in these standards.

Sadly, the problem of prison rape is just as pressing now as it was when Congress passed PREA in 2003. Below is the shameful index of prison rape in prisons, jails and youth detention centers across the country. These numbers reflect a national tragedy. But PREA gives us the critical tools to stop rape in our corrections facilities. Now, federal, state and local governments and the public must take strong and continued action to ensure that the promise of PREA becomes a safe and secure reality.

Number of people imprisoned in the United States: 2.3 million

Number of victims of rape or sexual abuse in U.S. prison, jails and juvenile detention facilities in the past year according to the Justice Department: 216,600 (the DOJ admitted it was likely “underestimating the extent of the problem”)

Number of victims of rape or sexual abuse in U.S. prison, jails and juvenile detention facilities since the initial PREA legislation as signed into law (Sept. 4, 2003): 1,884,909

Number of days past the Department of Justice’s deadline (June 23, 2010) for establishing the final standards: 717

Number of victims of rape or sexual abuse in U.S. prison, jails and juvenile detention facilities since the Department of Justice missed its deadline to establish regulations: 411,332

Percentage of youth in state juvenile facilities and large non-state facilities who experienced one or more incidents of sexual victimization in the past 12 months: 12%

Percentage of youth sexually victimized by a corrections staff member: 10.3%

Percentage of former state prisoners reporting one or more incidents of sexual victimization while in jail, prison or post-release community treatment facilities: 9.6%

Percentage of male former state prisoners who identified as homosexual or gay who reported being sexually victimized by another inmate: 39%

Percentage of male bisexual former state prisoners who reported being sexually victimized by another inmate: 34%

Percentage of transgender prisoners reporting being sexually assaulted in prison or jail according to a national survey: 15%

Percentage of black transgender prisoners reporting being sexually assaulted in prison or jail according to a national survey: 34%

Percentage of former state prisoners who experience retaliation in the form of disciplinary charges after reporting sexual victimization by a staff member: 46.3%

Percentage of former state prisoners who reported no facility response at all, after reporting sexual victimization by another prisoner: 37%

Number of states which allow cross-gender pat downs: 30

Number of reported incidents of sexual abuse in immigration detention facilities since 2007: 185

Number of organizations which urged President Obama to instruct the Department of Justice to extend PREA coverage to immigration detention facilities: 38

Number of members of the National Sheriff’s Association, which called on the Department of Justice to extend its PREA regulations to Department of Homeland Security detention centers: 18,000

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May 18, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Standing Up Against Sexual Assault By the State

By Mie Lewis, Women’s Rights Project | April 12, 2012

Today, 34 civil rights, religious, and health organizations and experts joined together to condemn an extraordinarily degrading body search used on women prisoners. After every meeting with a family member, religious worker, or lawyer, and at other times, prisoners confined in Michigan’s Women’s Huron Valley prison are forced to remove all of their clothing and use their hands to spread open their vaginal lips as a guard peers into their vaginal cavities. This search — used routinely only in Michigan and in no other jurisdiction — has devastating emotional effects on women prisoners, the majority of whom are survivors of sexual or physical abuse.

A striking fact about Michigan’s spread-labia vaginal search is that it doesn’t serve any practical purpose, in part because the procedure is piled on top of two standard strip search maneuvers that already permit officials to detect any items smuggled in body cavities. Despite being even more degrading than those methods, the spread-labia search doesn’t add any measure of security. It’s therefore not surprising that the search doesn’t appear to yield any contraband. When we asked for records of contraband found during these searches, the Michigan Department of Corrections refused to turn any over, claiming that no log of recovered contraband is kept. In fact, subjecting women to such a humiliating search actually endangers security, because it traumatizes the women and risks increasing tensions between prisoners and staff.

But is it fair to characterize the spread-labia search as sexual assault by the state? Yes, for many reasons. Although the search doesn’t serve any legitimate purpose, women are forced to submit through the threat — or the actuality — of force. If a woman resists taking off her clothing or opening her vagina, she can be physically subdued and searched, or punished with solitary confinement. In most cases, the threat of force is enough to coerce women to comply. It’s important to note that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and courts, define sexual assault as a violation of the sexual integrity or dignity of the victim. It doesn’t have to give sexual gratification to the perpetrator, or even involve touching. The point of sexual assault is domination and control, asserted by means of the victim’s body. Decades ago, the eminent sociologist Erving Goffman described how body searches are used in prisons and similar institutions to humiliate and degrade inmates through what he called “forced interpersonal contact.” By breaking down a person’s sense of self, compulsory body searches make prisoners easier to control.

The similarities between the spread-labia search and sexual assault don’t end there. The effects of degrading body searches on the women forced to undergo them are uncannily similar to the effects of rape. In studies, both rape survivors and prisoners subjected to invasive searches reported damaged self-esteem, a sense of helplessness, anger, and feelings of disgust toward their own bodies. Both groups experience repetitive phenomena like flashbacks and nightmares. And without proper care, both can respond to the intense pain with self-destructive coping behaviors like self-harm and drug abuse. The words of the women themselves show that they experience the spread-labia search as sexual assault.

A broad coalition of rights and religious groups has given Michigan’s prison officials a clear choice: If officials are truly interested in rehabilitating prisoners and thereby reducing crime, they must stop sadistically undoing the hard work of rehabilitation through this patently abusive search. You can stand up against the spread-labia vaginal search by learning more about this extreme civil rights violation, and taking action to end the search for good.

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April 12, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | 1 Comment