I’d like to point your attention to an excellent article written by Wendy McElroy on the subject of prison rape.
Though Ms. McElroy does an excellent job discussing this alarming subject, I’d like to add a few thoughts of my own.
This is an issue often snickered at (and in someways encouraged) by some who claim to be “tough on crime”. However, the most disturbing facet of this issue is how some elected officials use it to their advantage. For example, Tom G. Palmer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, recently pointed out in a shocking L.A. Times editorial California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer’s comments regarding Enron Corp. Chairman Kenneth Lay:
“I would love to personally escort Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, ‘Hi, my name is Spike, honey.'”
Prison rape is also used as a deterrent against crime in some states. According to an article on Free Republic.com:
On Wednesday, May 9th, Colorado Project Exile held a private press conference at the Colorado Trust, a grantmaking foundation that is providing the funds for Colorado Project Exile commercials, etc.
First, let me describe the commercials that we saw. They played all of them, and in these commercials they make a deliberate point of suggesting that if you are sent to Federal prison under Project Exile, prison rape will be an expected part of your future.
Both Bob and I were sickened by this approach.
Here’s an example. One commercial shows an enormous Federal prison in South Dakota, with the roughest-looking prisoners doing exercises in their cells. Tattoos, cruel looks, and aggressive bar-slamming by the inmates. And the captions read, “Think carrying a 9mm makes you a man?”
“Lots of people in Federal prison find that attractive.”
And so it goes. My generation is currently witness to the highest prison population America has ever seen. In fact, we incarcerate more people per capita than any other first world country on the face of the earth. The troubling fact is, nearly two thirds of those in the system are jailed for non violent offenses.
No one deserves to be raped, no matter what the crime. Oh, we may invoke our little fantasies. We may utter our platitudes on how ‘this scum bag deserves what he gets’, or ‘stick ’em in a cell with a few Bubbas, now that’s justice’. However, we must all be vigilant not to let those rash feelings bleed over into complacency. We, as a society, have a duty to protect even the guiltiest of guilty against unjustified force or unreasonable punishment. I would say rape is both unjustified and unreasonable. Prisons and the people who run them have a Constitutional obligation to stop this scourge now.
It is not soft on crime to speak out for basic human rights, even for hardened criminals. We should always endeavor to shield the downtrodden and the condemned from the darker angels of our nature.
