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Post by Big Lin on Jan 23, 2010 1:17:00 GMT
criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/would_you_joke_about_this_womans_rapeWould You Joke About This Woman's Rape? by Te-Ping Chen categories: Activism and Advocacy, juvenile justice, prison conditions, prison rape Published January 22, 2010 @ 08:20AM PT .If you knew a young boy down the street had been raped, would you joke about it? If you knew your friend's sister was being raped, would you help her? What if you made both of those people wear prison jumpsuits -- what about then? That's what a new campaign from JUST DETENTION International (JDI) wants to know. Long a cultural staple, prison rape jokes -- never funny to begin with -- start to look even more like an appalling vestige of the past when confronted with the real stats. Try this one on for size: the Justice Department's January report says that over 12% of kids in juvenile prisons are sexually abused while in custody. In some facilities, like Maryland's Backbone Mountain Youth Center, that figure vaults as high as 36%. Human Rights Watch wrote a searing report on the subject of male rape in prison a number of years back, which is well worth a re-visit. Here's one man's account, excerpted below: When I first came to prison, I had no idea what to expect. Certainly none of this. I'm a tall white male, who unfortunately has a small amount of feminine characteristics. And very shy. These characteristics have got me raped so many times I have no more feelings physically. I have been raped by up to 5 black men and two white men at a time. I've had knifes at my head and throat.... This is a man who was in prison for a D.U.I. offense (his third). HRW has more, including the case of Rodney Hulin, whose 17-year-old son hanged himself after being sodomized and repeatedly abused by other inmates, and his requests for protective custody denied. By all means, civil liberties and human rights advocates should continue to keep the pressure up on Guantanamo, and in calling the White House out on its limp-noodle stance on investigating past torture and abuse. But it's important not to forget, either, that greatest number of mass atrocities visited on prisoners by the American justice system happen right here in this country, on our soil. Photo Credit: Just Detention International
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2010 15:29:19 GMT
I don't understand the point about jokes : can you explain?
Okay, some are in very bad taste, and no-one should laugh at an individual's tragedies or misfortunes.
But if they want to prevent someone making a light hearted remark like "don't drop the soap in the shower" in a letter to a prisoner, they have rather missed the point about jokes.
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Post by Big Lin on Jan 24, 2010 17:04:49 GMT
Skylark, it's an advertising campaign to raise people's awareness of the HUGE and horrific problem of prison rape.
People on TV are always making sick jokes about it and as it actually HAPPENED to two friends of mine - a husband and wife - and they were so traumatised that they tried to kill themselves - I feel very strongly on the issue.
Whatever an inmate has done he or she deserves to be protected from rape and it's totally appalling that it's not become a major issue like, say, domestic violence has.
I know rape victims personally apart from my two friends and I've twice had to fight off would-be rapists myself so I know what it's like and how much it damages the person.
Why should convicts have to suffer this?
In juvenile institutions in America, for instance, 10% of the inmates are abused by STAFF.
Actually the female guards are bigger offenders than the men. In a recent investigation, they found that 90% of the inmate abuse was carried out by female guards.
Whoever is doing it - staff or convicts - and whoever's on the receiving end - it's just plain WRONG!
I get sick to my stomach at the callous way people are so indifferent to the suffering of prisoners.
That's why I posted this link.
I hope the campaign has SOME impact but with the total contempt that so many people have for inmates I'm not holding my breath.
It's a shock tactic to try and raise awareness, Skylark.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2010 18:28:24 GMT
Well, I just bogged down by the "joke" point....so perhaps it missed its target.
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Post by Big Lin on Jan 28, 2010 17:06:12 GMT
Prisoner rape: Some facts and figures
According to the Bureau of Justice, (statistics dated 2005),there have been 200,000 rapes among current prison inmates and over one million prisoners have been raped during the previous 20 years.
As Rich Lowry said: "Our tolerance for prison rape is a great mystery. We profess to abhor rape, to adore personal dignity, to uphold the rights of the downtrodden -- yet we sentence tens of thousands of men, women and juveniles every year to the most bestial kind of abuse, without a second thought."
There is a video clip on YouTube in which a 17-year old in Michigan describes how his 'psychological evaluation' largely consisted of the psychologist gloating over the prospect of the young man's forthcoming transfer to an adult prison and how he would be raped in there. He not only showed no sympathy for his plight but positively glorified the fact that he would become the victim of non-cpnsensual sex.
Government studies on the problem (there have not been many but they have come to a few conclusions which are utterly damning of the present system) refer to untrained staff, lack of awareness by the public of the sheer scale of the problem, lack of awareness of it by the government, underreporting of the crime in the media, lack of proper physical and mental health treatment, and the attitude best summed up by Cindy Johnson-Struckman in 1996 as follows:
“lack of awareness, particularly since information coming from prisons is tightly controlled, misperceptions about the nature of sexual coercion, and buying into the myth that heterosexual men can’t be forced to participate in a sexual act against his will, and most disturbingly, prejudice against inmate victims – perhaps sharing public opinion that inmates who have been sexually assaulted are not true victims and are perceived as deserving their fate because of their crimes – the price they must pay for their societal wrongdoings.”
She concluded that not only ignorance but direct collusion in the practice was widespread and prevalent. The figures certainly support her conclusions.
Here is a quote from US Supreme Court Justice Harry A Blackmun, Farmer v. Brennan: "Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit. Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure."
In Texas, in 2007, a staggering 750 juvenile inmates, many as young as 12, were habitually raped by STAFF over a six-year period. Not ONE staff member during that time has been sent to prison for their crimes.
Stephen Donaldson, former president of Stop Prisoner Rape, was the first victim of prison rape to speak out about the issue publicly. In 1973, Donaldson was arrested for participating in a peaceful Quaker protest against US bombings of Cambodia. He spent two days in jail during which he was brutally gang raped 60 times. After his release he underwent rectal surgery as a result of the violence of the attacks. Donaldson later discovered he had been infected with HIV during the prison rapes and eventually died from AIDS-related complications.
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