Prison rape is one of the most overlooked issues in the black community. A new report proves we need to pay more attention.
When one man told his story I nearly broke into tears. He told of the time, the entire prison row decided to plot against him. One night, he was raped by another man, bigger than him. He attempted to yell and scream for the guards to help, but the prison population is smarter than that. The entire prison row all yelled and screamed. This way, the guards were confused and they couldn’t identify which cell needed attention. By the time the guards found the cell, he was already sexually victimized.
You don’t have to watch old episodes of OZ or watch movies like Prison Song or First Time Felon to know that incredibly immoral acts of violence take place in America’s prison population. Everyday hundreds of black and brown males are being raped by others who have nothing to live for. Each day, black women continue to suffer.
The government reported Thursday that 4.4% of inmates in prison and 3.1% of inmates in jail report being victimized sexually by another inmate or staff member in the past year. Those numbers are probably low.
Nearly 90,000 inmates were sexually victimized behind bars from October 2008 to December 2009. The study also found:
* Female inmates were more than twice as likely as male inmates to report experiencing sexual victimization by another inmate.
* Among inmates who reported victimization by another inmate, 13 percent of male prison inmates and 19 percent of male jail inmates said they were victimized within the first 24 hours after being admitted to a corrections facility. In contrast, the figure for women was 4 percent for prison and jail.
Tens of thousands of rapes are occurring in America’s prisons each year and the new study “finds the problem is even worse than we thought,” Pat Nolan, vice president of Prison Fellowship, said in a statement.
In a letter earlier this month to Attorney General Eric Holder, a coalition of groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Baptist Convention urged that he approve standards designed to eradicate sexual assault in prison. The standards were proposed by the bipartisan Prison Rape Elimination Commission, which was set up by 2003 law designed to end prison rape.
“We are working diligently to implement these standards as soon as possible” and expect to send the proposed rule to the White House Office of Management Budget in the fall, said Justice Department spokeswoman Hannah August.
(Source)
Let’s hope this gets passed.
RECCOMENDATIONS FROM THE COLOR CURVE:
1. Prison Song
3. Oz – The Complete Seasons 1-6
4. Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?
5. At Work in the Iron Cage: The Prison as Gendered Organization
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Just another tick off the “How to destroy a culture” list. These men are already having their manhood taken away. Prison systems throw around words like “reform” but applying that to real life situations for an ex-convict or a convicted felon is almost impossible. It’s difficult to find work, most of them come home on parole with instructions not to associate with other convicted felons well, that’s not possible when they are going home to neighborhoods where 70-85% of the men in the area are convicted felons (I’m low balling). Outside of the mental destruction that occurs when they have to revert to animalistic tactics to survive in prison, the stripping of their identity and verbal and physical abuse we can add sexual abuse and you’ve just broken yourself a black man. I don’t understand why all prisons that preach reform aren’t required to be Panopticons I’m sure that would cut down on the inmate on inmate violence. I wouldn’t cross my fingers in hope that any of these prison conditions will improve and business is booming so why rock the boat.