Monday, June 01, 2009

 

Prison Rape

Being raped shouldn't be part of any one's sentence. Prison rape often brings jokes or dark references to a "big bull queer named..." But, along with the U.S. holding the record for having the "largest prison population and the highest rate of incarceration in the world, prison rape poses a serious issue.

The extent of the problem varies according to the information source. Human Rights Watch estimates 140,000 rapes occur in U.S. prisons each year. The National Institute of Justice gives a low figure of 8,000.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics lists several intriguing points.More of the incidents involve staff than not! Disgraceful. That 6 prisons had no reported incidents shows that prison rape can be minimized or eliminated.

Prison rape also causes spreading HIV at a higher rate than the population at large.

Considering that all prisons in the U.S. are under government control with a few being run by private companies with government oversight, allowing prison rape stands as a great moral failing of our society. Prison supposedly serves to punish and rehabilitate criminals. I fail to see rapes role in reaching this goal. Rather, most likely, it creates an angry, vengeful person bent on retribution against a society that trapped him/her in an inhuman environment.

Of course, I have my ulterior motives for writing about prison rape. That would be torture. In my recollection Instapundit and a few others are the only bloggers I've seen address the problem of prison rape. I can't recall reading a single word condemning prison rape in liberal blogs although, admittedly, I read fewer liberal blogs. However, I do review a few liberal blogs regularly looking for a fight.

Yet, virtually every liberal blog I've read and other liberal media outlets have howled about waterboarding. I don't support torture and realize atrocities occurred with POWs in Iraq and else where. But, why do the liberals howl so much about the waterboarding and ignore prison rape. Isn't it an international embarassment that we have so many people in prison and that rape is so prevalent? Don't the men and women in our prisons possess the same human rights at terrorists?

The answer is that the far left wingers don't care about the terrorists or our domestic prisoners. The waterboarding issue is nothing more than a tool to attack the opposition. If you look deep enough at the far left wingers, you'll find this pattern in virtually every issue. It's about grabbing power by any means, not caring.

Comments:
Three things: One - any time anyone talks about the horrendous conditions in our prisons, they are called "soft on crime."

Two - Orleans Parish has some of the worst conditions of any urban prisons in the USA, the reports have been coming out for years. From the ACLU, bloggers, non-profit watchdogs, and even the Federal government. Conditions after Katrina and the flood were referred to as torture in reports, blogs and media.

NOLA bloggers would talk about it more, I'm sure, if we weren't so busy trying to fix education, health care, the rest of the criminal justice system, local levee boards, the levees themselves, supporting corruption probes....you get the idea.

Three - people on all sides of the aisle find it easier to confront problems further away than those close to home. That's why so many folks talk and argue about things they have the least amount of control over.
 
I agree on all points. Part of what you're saying is if we looked at what was close at hand and within our control, we'd actually have to to something!
 
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