The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) mandated that the Department of Justice release regulations aimed at ending sexual abuse in detention. Recently, the regulations have been released. They contain a lot of the things we’ve been looking for!
- Protection for vulnerable inmates, such as queer people and youths, who are the most likely to be raped.
- Stronger procedures for detecting and preventing sexual assaults by staff.
- Inmates can speak to trained counselors about their abuse.
- No time limits to report abuse.
- Independent audits of each facility every three years, which will be made available to the public.
Is this just a first step? Of course. There’s a lot of work still to be done, and frankly it’s somewhat distressing that we didn’t have all of these things already. But the fact that it’s coming too late doesn’t stop my joy that it’s coming at all. Just ask every person who isn’t sexually assaulted by a staff member, or who doesn’t face a time limit to report their abuse, or who isn’t placed in an environment that will inevitably lead to their rape. This is amazing, a wonderful first step towards ending rape in prison once and for all.
In his memorandum announcing these regulations, President Obama said:
Sexual violence, against any victim, is an assault on human dignity and an affront to American values.
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you so much. It is time that we recognize that sexual violence– against anyone– matters. That sexual violence– against anyone– is unacceptable. That rape is not part of the punishment, and that no one deserves to be raped no matter what they did. That, as a nation, we’ve made a step towards recognizing that everyone, even prisoners, has certain basic human rights.
[Stephen Colbert: "I just feel like my heart is going to burst because it's full of rainbows."]
Fucking FINALLY.
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This rocks, Ozy!
I am amazingly happy to hear this, but i’m not sure if it would apply to jails as well? I remember when I did a tour of a jail for one of my classes in college, the guard mentioned that after certain number of offenses (or the original crime) the juveniles are released into general population, and implied they had what was coming to them.
It’s nice to have the standards in place, but I have to wonder since 79% of staff sexual abuse is female staff abusing male prisoners why does it only prevent cross gender pat down searches of adult, female prisoners? It’s nice to prevent 21% of sexual abuse. It’s better to prevent 79% of sexual abuse. Ideally we’d prevent it all.
Here are the standards:
• Develop and maintain a zero-tolerance policy regarding sexual abuse;
• Designate a PREA point person to coordinate compliance efforts;
• Screen inmates for risk of being sexually abused or sexually abusive, and use screening information to inform housing, bed, work, education and program assignments;
• Develop and document a staffing plan that provides for adequate levels of staffing and, where applicable, video monitoring;
• Train employees on their responsibilities in preventing, recognizing and responding to sexual abuse;
• Perform background checks on prospective employees and not hire abusers;
• Prevent juveniles from being housed with adult inmates or having unsupervised contact with adult inmates in common spaces;
• Ban cross-gender pat-down searches of female inmates in prisons and jails and of both male and female residents of juvenile facilities;
• Incorporate unique vulnerabilities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and gender nonconforming inmates into training and screening protocols;
• Enable inmates to shower, perform bodily functions and change clothing without improper viewing by staff of the opposite gender;
• Restrict the use of solitary confinement as a means of protecting vulnerable inmates; and
• Enter into or renew contracts only with outside entities that agree to comply with the standards.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/May/12-ag-635.html
Male guards shouldn’t be used to guard female prisoners, but they are. Amy Fisher, who stabbed Joey Buttafuco’s wife, was raped and offered to gurads from other prisons when she was confined. Most of the other abuse is prisoner on prisoner, and it’s frequently used by guards as a tool to enforce discipline, as above.
I sometimes wonder if there would be more support for stopping prison rape if, instead of saying “Inmates don’t deserve to be raped” we took the angle of “Some criminals like to rape people and they shouldn’t be rewarded by being sent to a free rape buffet.”
Regardless, I’m glad we’re doing something about it and President Obama should be commended for handling a problem that, unfortunately, isn’t very popular with the general population.
I’m torn between being excited about this and being amazed at just how far behind we are on this issue. These are the most basic protections, let’s hope and work for much, much more.