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Why We Let Prison Rape Go On


ORANGE, Conn. — IT’S been called “America’s most ‘open’ secret”: According
to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, around 80,000 women and men a year
are sexually abused in American correctional facilities. That number is
almost certainly subject to underreporting, through shame or a victim’s
fear of retaliation. Overall, only 35 percent of rapes and sexual assaults
were reported to the police in 2010, and the rate of reporting in prisons
is undoubtedly lower still.

To tackle the problem, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act,
signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2003. The way to eliminate sexual assault, lawmakers determined, was to make Department of Justice
funding for correctional facilities conditional on states’ adoption of zero-tolerance policies toward sexual abuse of inmates.

Inmates would be screened to identify possible predators and victims.
Prison procedures would ensure investigation of complaints by outside law enforcement. Correctional officers would be instructed about behavior that constitutes sexual abuse. And abusers, whether inmates or guards, would be punished effectively.

But only two states — New Hampshire and New Jersey — have fully complied
with the act. Forty-seven states and territories have promised that they
will do so. Using Justice Department data, the American Civil Liberties
Union estimated that from 2003 to 2012, when the law’s standards were finalized, nearly two million inmates were sexually assaulted.


Six Republican governors have neglected or refused to comply, complaining
of cost and other factors. Rick Perry, then the governor of Texas, wrote
to the Justice Department last year stating that 40 percent of the
correctional officers in male facilities in Texas were women, so that “cross-gender viewing” (like witnessing inmates in the shower, which contravenes the legal guidelines) could not be avoided. The mandated
measures, he said, would levy “an unacceptable cost” on Texas, which has
one of the highest rates of prison sexual assault.

For its noncompliance, Texas is likely to lose just 5 percent of federal funding for its state prisons, or about $800,000. It will still receive
$15.2 million in federal grants even as inmates continue to be sexually assaulted. If Congress passes an amendment that Senator John Cornyn,
Republican of Texas, proposed last year, the financial penalty for noncompliance will be removed altogether.

Ultimately, prisons protect rape culture to protect themselves. According
to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about half of prison sexual assault complaints in 2011 were filed against staff. (These reports weren’t all
claims of forcible rape; it is considered statutory sexual assault for a
guard to have sexual contact with an inmate.)
Image
Credit...Ben Jones

I was an inmate for six years in Connecticut after being convicted of
identity fraud, among other charges. From what I saw, the same small group
of guards preyed on inmates again and again, yet never faced discipline.
They were protected by prison guard unions, one of the strongest forces in American labor.

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Sexualized violence is often used as a tool to subdue inmates whom guards
see as upstarts. In May 2008, while in a restricted housing unit, or “the
SHU” as it is commonly known, I was sexually assaulted by a guard. The
first person I reported the incident to, another guard, ignored it. I
finally reached a nurse who reported it to a senior officer.

When the state police arrived, I decided not to talk to them because the harassment I’d received in the intervening hours made me fearful. For the
same reason, I refused medical treatment when I was taken to a local
emergency room.

Subsequent interviews with officials at the prison amounted to hazing and harassment. They accused me of having been a drug user, which was untrue,
and of lying about going to college, though it was true I had. The “investigation,” which I found more traumatic than the assault, dragged on
for more than two months until they determined that my allegation couldn’t
be substantiated. The law’s guidelines were followed, but in letter not in spirit.

I was also a witness in a case in which an inmate claimed to have been
sexually assaulted by a guard and then told me she’d made it up. I
reported her — and this time, I was perfectly credible to an investigator,
who praised me for having a conscience and a clear head.

The Justice Department estimates that the total bill to society for prison
rape and sexual abuse is as high as $51.9 billion per year, including the
costs of victims’ compensation and increased recidivism. If states refuse
to implement the law when the fiscal benefit is so obvious, something
larger is at stake.


According to Allen Beck, senior statistical adviser at the Bureau of
Justice Statistics, “institutional culture and facility leadership may be
key factors in determining the level of victimization.” Rape persists, in
other words, because it’s the cultural wallpaper of American correctional facilities. We preserve the abuse because we’re down with perps getting punished in the worst ways.

Compliance does not even cost that much. The Justice Department estimates
that full nationwide compliance would cost $468.5 million per year,
through 2026. Even that much is less than 1 percent of states’ spending on corrections. Putting aside the cruelty and pain inflicted, prison rape
costs far more than the implementation of the law designed to stop it.

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