I guess they haven't heard there are laws against rape. There is a special set of rules for corrections staff. Remember the ring leader for the night shift torture squad at Abu Ghraib, Charles Graner, he was trained in  prisons in this country. He had two lawsuits filed against him for prisoner abuse before he went to Abu Ghraib. He was known to be brutal, racially prejudiced, he beat his wife, and threatened to kill his wife several times. These kinds of people are among the staff working in the prison systems in this country. They are brutal bullies.

Todays New York Times Editorial:

The Justice Department needs to act swiftly and decisively to protect young people who are being battered and raped in juvenile corrections facilities all across the country. A shocking new study by the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics surveyed more than 9,000 young people in custody and found that 12 percent reported being sexually abused one or more times, mainly by staff members.

Particularly alarming, the study found several juvenile facilities where 30 percent or more of the young people reported being raped. Some of the institutions with high rates of victimization were in Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas.

These latest findings are consistent with those reported in June by a federal commission created by Congress under the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act. The commission, which examined the problem for five years, also outlined a list of sensible policy changes, which the Justice Department has the power to make mandatory for all corrections institutions that accept federal money.

They examined the problem for five years, so much for acting swiftly. Many of the staff who are raping the kids have been known about for years. In fact at one facility they charted the rape activities. They simply ignored it.

The commission said that corrections facilities must make it easier for victims to report abuse without fear of reprisal and promptly and thoroughly investigate all rape claims. It said that prison employees must be better screened before they are hired, and they must be better trained in how to deal with vulnerable young people.

How about arresting the staff who are doing the raping and sending them to prison instead of just letting them continue to rape kids? What kind of morons are running the prisons in this country? Is it any wonder that kids who end up in the system become angry and brutal? They get beat up by cops on the street and then beaten and raped in the corrections facilities. I would really like to see some research tracking what happens to these kids after they leave these juvenile prisons. It doesn't take Phd in psychology to figure out this system is causing mental illness and violent behavior.

The commission also called on state corrections agencies to develop written zero-tolerance rules for employees of adult and juvenile facilities — and write those rules into union contracts. Employees must be put on notice that they will be held accountable if they participate in sexual assaults or look the other way when they occur.

WTF, they make it sound like raping these kids is the same as violating some policy or procedure. No, they need to arrest the ones that are doing it. They are going to write rules that they can't rape inmates into the union contracts? This is one of the problems. I am a union supporter, but when I worked on McNeil Island, a men’s prison, they told me the drugs were smuggled in by the corrections officers. When I asked why they did not just search everyone they said the union would not allow it. That is crazy, security is the priority here. What exactly do they mean by "held accountable"? I have been telling everyone the corrections officers are the dangerous people in the prisons, but I doubt anyone believed me. It is very bad in the prisons in this country and I can't believe anyone would allow this to go on in a youth facility. Apparently other staff knew and just did nothing. I caught a corrections officer having sex with an adult female and staff in a mentally ill legal offender unit having sex with a very ill woman, I reported both of them and the one at the psychiatric facility had a really bad headache for days.

The 2003 law gave the United States attorney general until June of this year to evaluate the commission’s findings and issue new rape-prevention standards. But juvenile justice advocates worry that the Justice Department will allow state corrections officials to water down those requirements, partly by arguing that they will be too expensive to implement. The department should not allow that to happen. If it does, Congress will have to strengthen the legislation. Zero tolerance for abuse in prisons or juvenile facilities must be the law of the land.

The law of the land only applies to certain people. They have filled the prisons so full they are unmanageable. A huge number of those incarcerated should not be there and they are abused by staff which in my case included medical and nursing staff. This country is screwed up, people knew this was going on and did nothing about it. Now, as I have found out if you do something about abuse, incompetence, and corruption the bullies will have you set up in some way. Then you end up being the one incarcerated and abused by sociopaths who work in prisons because they have a vulnerable population who can't fight back.

It is nauseating to know that first of all people exist who would allow children to be raped and not take action to stop it. One of the issues I complained about when I was abused in the prison system in Alaska is there is no way to complain. They disappeared the grievances, threatened me, tried to put me in segregation, would not allow me any medical care, put me in a mental health unit like a medieval torture chamber, kept me from the phone, denied me law library privileges, and held me in a restrictive unit. I am outspoken and had a great deal of experience which told me what was going on was wrong, I could not stop them. The more I told them what they were doing was wrong the more abusive they got. I called all the right government agencies who should have done something, they don't care at all about anyone who is incarcerated. Can you imagine being a child and being raped in a juvenile prison? They threaten them and beat them to keep them from telling. There is no help or a way to complain. Our society is completely broken down. I am shocked and disgusted.


Say NO to Palin in Politics said...

I am too Celia. This is just wrong, wrong, wrong. We have human rights groups fighting for women and childrens rights in other countries. You'd think those same groups would find this just as unacceptable.

Have you tried contacting them?

Celia Harrison said...

Human rights groups have been calling for the government to do something about the brutal conditions in the prisons for a long time. The DOJ has prosecuted some of the brutal prison guards recently. The reasons for the mass numbers in the prisons are complicated by the fact that corporations are in control of the legilators. Not only the private prison corporations, but also the unions for corrections officers have gotten laws passed for harsher sentences, made it easier to incarcerate addicts, made it easier to incarcerate the mentally ill, designed a revolving door system so they are insured a large number of ex-inmates will be returned to prison, facilitated the favoring of brutal prison staff and policies, allowed `christian` organizations to actually take over some of the prison programs, shaped a judicial system which does not protect the rights of inmates(nor insure due process), insures lot of money spent on prosecuting and little on defense(for indigents), denies mental health care to addicts and mentally ill, denies rehabilitation(there are some programs, most of which are ineffective), uses punitive measures on those who attempt to complain about prison conditions, and destroys or blocks attempts to file grievances by inmates.

The ACLU has been "investigating" the prisons in Alaska for a very long period of time. They decided to just wait and see what Joe Schmidt was going to do about the conditions rather than issue a report or file a lawsuit. This has been years ago. They state one of the main reasons for doing this is lack of donations in Alaska, and that the people in Alaska just do not care about the inmates. This begs the question of what the relationship of staff at the ACLU in Alasks could be with regard to the powers that be in Alaska. They have been almost dead silent on the subject. The only statement on their website is about ex-inmates being denied jobs. They also have a guide to prisoner rights. They tell those who think they have a claim to contact an attorney. Ex-inmates are often homeless, jobless, and have no money. They can't afford an attorney, they are further referred to resources for legal assistance in Alaska such as the bar association's Pro Bono program which pretty much just does domestic issues and landlord tenant issues. Referring someone to the Ombusman in Alaska is ridiculous as all she does is ask, "what am I supposed to do with this?". In my case I suggested she do something about the corruption and got not response. The ACLU has allowed inmates in the prison system to suffer harm from lack of health care and other forms of abuse by standing by and remaining silent.