The Effectiveness of U.S. Prisons
In 2003, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), after both the Democratic and Republican parties supported it unanimously. According to PREA, it aimed to “provide for the analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape in Federal, State and local institutions and to provide information, resources, recommendations and funding to protect individuals from prison rape.”
In addition to this act, the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (NPREC), a bipartisan panel, was formed in 2003 for the purpose of creating “draft standards,” which were completed in June of 2009, to eliminate prison rape. On August 12, 2012, the standards were made effective.
However, this act and the draft standards have not greatly decreased the rate of sexual assault in prisons. The American Civil Liberties Union estimated that during the nine year span between 2003 and 2012, about 2,000,000 prisoners were sexually assaulted.
Two million inmates. Two million men and women, most of whom were already probably in a state of great sorrow due to their incarceration, were assaulted. According to the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network (RAINN), sexual assault could result in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), self harm, flashbacks, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), depression and substance abuse.
These are not minimal side-effects; these are significant life-altering conditions that the inmates must suffer. PTSDs can forever haunt a person’s life. Likewise, self harm, depression, substance abuse and malicious flashbacks can continue to damage a person’s well-being. Finally, STDs have the malignant ability to kill people, especially those who do not have easy access to the best medical care, such as the incarcerated men and women.
Some may say that these men and women deserve this suffering and pain, granted, they have committed felonies against other men and women of this country who were seen as innocent. However, they eat prison food for all their meals, they are away from their homes and loved ones and they spend their hours behind bars—these are their sufferings. Through an established and formal court case, the state concluded upon a just punishment for these inmates’ felonies. When making the judgement to imprison these men and women, they did not warn, “In addition, they will be assaulted in prison, thus making the final touches to our punishment for them.” Their decisions to put these criminals in prison were final.
In addition, prison is a place where inmates should learn to distance themselves from their criminal ways. It is a place where they should understand the consequences of their actions. But if in these prisons, the inmates are being sexually assaulted, what motive will they have to stop their criminal activity?
Therefore, within the prisons, these men and women ought to be treated the same way humans elsewhere are treated since they have already received their punishments in court. They do not deserve to be raped, nor given PTSD or STDs.
It is not just the adult men and women who are being affected by these horrible deeds. According to the Just Detention International, a health and human rights organization that works to “end sexual abuse in all forms of detention,” one in ten youth have reported to have been sexually abused while in juvenile facilities.
Children, most of whom are around 17 to 20 years of age, are also raped in juvenile centers, where they are supposed to be cared for and helped so that they might move away from their criminal history. Like the men and women in the prisons, why should they avert from their criminal ways if they are being assaulted in prison?
Preventing sexual assault against men, women and children in prisons and juvenile detention centers will be a difficult task. We have seen that neither the law nor the draft standards have aided the number of assaulted inmates and unless more action is taken, this number will not decline. Organizations such as the Just Detention International have only begun to raise funds and startup to assist in ridding the American prisons of rape.
Although this may not seem like an urgent task to some, the government, with its organizations, ought to take more action, especially after seeing that 12 years with the implemented law has done little to nothing in ameliorating the prison rape situation.