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Further Reading: Prison Rape

From Stop Prisoner Rape (now Just Detention)

Rape in US prisons, jails and other detention facilities is a serious problem, and a disgrace to our country.

Men’s Rights Activists often complain, quite justifiably, about prison rape jokes. Typically, they attribute the double standard towards prison rape jokes as an indication that, as one MRA put it in a recent discussion, “nobody gives a shit about men.” As I’ve pointed out, this explanation doesn’t take us very far, given that women are also raped in prison, and that people make jokes about that too. (Indeed, there is an entire genre of “women in prison” exploitation films that sexualizes this abuse.)

More to the point, most MRAs don’t seem terribly interested in actually attempting to do much about prison rape beyond complaining about obnoxious rape jokes or making rhetorical points about the “disposability” of men. (See below for the few examples of MR blogs I could find that have addressed the issue as more than a bullet point in a laundry list of complaints; I’ve found much more serious discussion of prison rape on feminist blogs.) Anyone who is interested in doing something about it should consider getting in touch with Just Detention, a human rights advocacy group working to stop sexual abuse in detention facilities.

Some basic information about prison rape. I’ve bolded the crucial information.

Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2008-09, by Allen J. Beck, Ph.D., Paige M. Harrison

An estimated 4.4% of prison inmates and 3.1% of jail inmates reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another inmate or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission to the facility, if less than 12 months. Nationwide, these percentages suggest that approximately 88,500 adults held in prisons and jails at the time of the survey had been sexually victimized.

Female inmates in prison (4.7%) or jail (3.1%) were more than twice as likely as male inmates in prison (1.9%) or jail (1.3%) to report experiencing inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization. … Most victims of staff sexual misconduct were males; most perpetrators were females.

Note: Men make up the overwhelming majority of rape victims in prison — 90 percent — largely because the overwhelming majority of inmates are male. While the number of men raped in prison is appalling, I would like to clear up one Men’s Rights Myth: that the number of men raped inside prison is greater than the number of women raped outside of prison. This is simply false; the numbers aren’t even close: again, while the estimate of the total number of people (male and female) currently being held in prison who have been raped there in the past year is 88,500, estimates of the total number of those raped per year (outside of prison) range from about 200,000 to more than a million (the real number is probably closer to the latter); estimates suggest that anywhere from 86% to 94% of rape victims are female, and that males may make up to 99% of the perpetrators. See here (doc format) for a look at various estimates, and here (pdf) for more details from a large scale survey. As is the case with rapes in general, the vast majority of prison rapes go unreported.

EDITED TO ADD: The information in the previous paragraph is outdated. The Department of Justice has revised upwards its estimate of the number of prisoners (male and female) who are sexually assaulted each year to 216,000. Which means that considerably more men are raped per year than previously thought. There is still no clean and direct way to directly compare rapes of men and women, in prison and out, because the various studies out there use different methodologies and different definitions of sexual assault. Stephanie Zvan drills into the numbers in great detail here; anyone seriously interested in this issue should read her post carefully.

 

Information from Just Detention:

Overview:

Sexual abuse behind bars is a widespread human rights crisis in prisons and jails across the US. Aaccording to the best available research, 20 percent of inmates in men’s prisons are sexually abused at some point during their incarceration. The rate for women’s facilities varies dramatically from one prison to another, with one in four inmates being victimized at the worst institutions.

In a 2007 survey of prisoners across the country, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) found that 4.5 percent (or 60,500) of the more than 1.3 million inmates held in federal and state prisons had been sexually abused in the previous year alone. A BJS survey in county jails was just as troubling; nearly 25,000 jail detainees reported having been sexually abused in the past six months.

Unfortunately, the data provided by the still represent only a fraction of the true number of detainees who are victimized, especially of those held in county jails. The number of admissions to local jails over the course of a year is approximately 17 times higher than the nation’s jail population … .

(Source pdf)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer inmates are the chief target of sexual abuse in prison

Sexual abuse of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) inmates constitutes one of the most rampant and ignored human rights violations in the US today. In a 2007 academic study, funded by the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation and conducted at six California men’s prisons, 67 percent of inmates who identified as LGBTQ reported having been sexually assaulted by another inmate during their incarceration, a rate that was 15 times higher than for the inmate population overall.

(Source pdf)

Sexual Abuse and STDs:

Sexual violence in detention spreads disease. Prisoner rape victims are highly vulnerable to contracting HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. … In 2004, the HIV prevalence rate inside US prisons was more than four times higher than in society overall. Hepatitis C rates are 8 to 20 times higher in prisons than on the outside … The rates of infection for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis are likewise significantly higher among inmates than in the population at-large.

(Source pdf)

For more information from Just Detention, see here for fact sheets, and here for links to useful articles and studies. 

Human Rights Watch Report: No Escape, Human Rights Watch, 2001.

Prison Rape: A Critical Review of the Literature, National Institute of Justice, 2004.

Cindy Struckman-Johnson and David Struckman-Johnson, Comparison of Sexual Coercion Experiences Reported by Men and Women in Prison, 21 Journal of Interpersonal Violence 1591 (2006)

Cathy Young: Assault Behind Bars

Interesting discussion of prison rape jokes on Reddit.

Some useful blog posts about prison rape, and prison rape jokes:

The Curvature: Prison rape and complacency

Feministe: Prison Rape: Assault shouldn’t be part of the sentence

Sex abuse rampant at youth prisons around the country

An old story: the cruel and unusual punishment of prison rape

Rape isn’t hilarious

Ms Magazine blog: Prison rape: Can it be stopped? 

Equal Writes: Rape in prison is still rape

Stop the prison rape jokes

Alas, a blog: Ezra Klein on Prison Rape

Feminist Critics: Discussion of the Alas, a blog post linked above

Alas, a blog: More on prison rape

Alas, a blog: Blog post round-up: Prison rape (Extensive list of links)

Reason Hit and Run: Mocking prison rape for fun and profit

Men’s Rights blogs on prison rape: 

Human Stupidity: Stop Prison Rape! Legalize Corporal Punishment (Whipping)

Female Offenders: Prison Rape Report

Toy Soldiers: Cost of Prison Rape

Menstuff: Prison Rape

Mens-rights.net: Prison Rape: the challenge of prevention and enforcement (Note that this cut-and-pasted post is illustrated by an animated gif of a pair of boots with the caption: “These boots were made for kicking feminists in the cunt.”)

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Eoghan
14 years ago

>You see, you are using rape victims to advance your man bad woman good ideology.And using your blog to misrepresent advocates for politically incorrect, rape and csa victims.The number of make rape victims out numbering that of female outside prison is not an mra figure, its an FBI, and humanrights watch figure.

Eoghan
14 years ago

>As for victimization by gender, FBI estimate that 30% of rape victims outside prison are male and and studies that ask both men and women the same questions show gender parity in rape outside prison.I note how when female dominance in child abuse is brought up its "thats only because women spend more time with children", as a mitigating factor but when the dominance of male rape victims in prison its brought up, "Oh but thats only because there are more males in the prison population".Its a two tired system of worthy victims and unworthy victim and guilty and innocent abusers.Its also noted that the only advocates that you suggest donating to prioritize politically correct victims over politically incorrect ones.You've also left out the fact that most rapes in juvenile prison are carried out by women against underage boys. Its all about maintaining the discriminatory feminist abuse industry's monopoly on funds and opinion.

Christina
14 years ago

>The thing is, why compare the number of men who get raped in prison to the number of women who get raped outside prison in the first place? Why compare the number of men who get raped to the number of women who get raped at all? This isn't a competition. We can work together to end abuse without arguing who gets victimized more. @Eoghan"You see, you are using rape victims to advance your man bad woman good ideology."How is he doing this? Unless you equate MRAs with men in general, which he didn't do. He did include this fact, "Most victims of staff sexual misconduct were males; most perpetrators were females," which directly contradicts the ideology he is allegedly promoting. He did condemn a problem that is a MRA issue (i.e. not try to justify or minimize it like some men's rights individuals do with rape and abuse against women).Seriously.

Eoghan
14 years ago

>ChristinaMra's dont tend to minimize rape and abuse against women, they are critical of feminisms exaggeration of it. They draw attention to the fact that society and feminism prioritizes rape and abuse against women, while ignoring men who are much more likely to be victimized by violent crime than women. Its a call for an end of the politicization of victims and a humanitarian perspective in which all victims are equal.

Pam
Pam
14 years ago

>Eoghan needs to read the "man bad woman good ideology" into everything that he reads here, because he expects to find that, being that it is an anti-MRA/MRM and an anti anti-Feminism blog. He's one of so many who buy into the "anti-MRA/MRM = anti-male" BS.

Pam
Pam
14 years ago

>The fact that men are much more likely to be victimized by violent crime than women is NOT ignored! The fact that, by and large, it is men who are more likely to victimize other men in violent crime is something that society and feminism points out, and men don't want to hear that because they think you're saying that man=bad woman=good, when that is NOT what we are saying!

Eoghan
14 years ago

>Your political group divides victims into worthy and unworthy groups and abusers into guilty and less guilty groups along politically correct guidelines, it disrupts battered mens and child sexual abuse meeting, threatens dv researchers and their families, produces polemic research, lobbies for polemic legislation and reductions in legal civil and human rights and the exclusion of politically incorrect victims from services and funding and suppresses fathers rights .. this blog is an extension of that..and then you act surprised when the politically incorrect get together and talk about it, sometimes expressing a white hot hatred for your group, as if its unwarranted and that your apartheid system is correct and beyond criticism.

Eoghan
14 years ago

>Pammodern feminism is based in marxist-leninist thought, of course it is saying one group is bad and the other is good, thats how the propaganda goes.

Tec
Tec
14 years ago

>@EoghanWait, didn't you just say in another thread that feminism is the same as fascism? Now you're saying it's socialism? Do you even understand what fascism and socialism are?You've said: "it disrupts battered mens and child sexual abuse meeting" before. Link?

David Futrelle
14 years ago

>"The number of make rape victims out numbering that of female outside prison is not an mra figure, its an FBI, and humanrights watch figure."Well, no. You're comparing apples and oranges here: the humanrights watch number is an estimate of the total number of prison rapes, both rapes reported to authorities and rapes NOT reported to authorities. The FBI number is based on rapes reported to authorities. Rape, in prison and without, is massively underreported. The latest # I have for the # of REPORTED prison rapes is this:During 2004, an estimated 8,210 allegations of sexual violence were reported by correctional authorities – the equivalent of 3.2 allegations per 1,000 inmates and youths incarcerated in 2004.source: http://www.icasa.org/docs/adult_victims_of_sexual_assault_-_draft-7.docAgain, the # of REPORTED rapes is much lower than the number of rapes that actually occur.

Eoghan
14 years ago

>and really, if it was genuinely about ending violence instead of advancing a political ideology. The focus would be where the majority of people first and most commonly experience violence, at the hand of the main care giver. Thats the way it is now and where violence has been first experiences, socialized and learned for a very long time now.But you know, its politically incorrect to say so. David, heres a self reporting study on rapes on campus.3% of men reported forced sex (of which 2.1% was forced vaginal sex… this is in fact men reporting victimization by women)22% of men reported verbal sexual coercionBy comparison, in the same study it was found that:2.3% of women reported forced sex (don't ignore the decimal point)25% of women reported verbal sexual coercionhttp://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID45-PR45.pdfIn reality, rape is not gendered nor is it political.

Manhood Academy
14 years ago

>And how did those men get there in the first place? Govt. stats show that SINGLE MOTHERS raise the vast majority of criminals that end up behind bars. Welcome to feminism.

Christina
14 years ago

>@Eoghan"Mra's dont tend to minimize rape and abuse against women"I never said they do. I said, "…like some men's rights individuals do…"Brush up on your reading comprehension.

Christina
14 years ago

>@ Manhood Academy…or you could blame the fathers for abandoning their children. In reality though, poverty and other social and environmental factors that contribute to crime rates are more complex than blaming single mothers or deadbeat dads. Oh, also, falling crime rates have been linked to the advent of the pill. So if you consider birth control a feminist issue, then feminism has contributed to falling crime rates.

Pam
Pam
14 years ago

>"The focus would be where the majority of people first and most commonly experience violence, at the hand of the main care giver."Who tends to be the main care giver, and why?

Eoghan
14 years ago

>Women tended to be the main care giver, and still do, for very obvious reasons. For example, bottles and expressing milk is only very recent thing. There a many reasons why women tended and still do tend to be the main care givers and in the Kibbutz experiment, women in the gender neutral regime, without outside influence, revolted and fought for the right to become the main care givers of their children, there are biological and logistic factors that lead to women being the main care giver. Anyway, I was talking about the root source of violence in society – the main care giver/child abuse and you politicized it and side stepped the issue, which is not helpful.

Cold
14 years ago

>"Female inmates in prison (4.7%) or jail (3.1%) were more than twice as likely as male inmates in prison (1.9%) or jail (1.3%) to REPORT[emphasis mine] experiencing inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization."Fucktrelle still thinks that report == fact. I'm still waiting for an actual link to an example of a joke being made about women raped in prison…

DarkSideCat
14 years ago

>"Mra's dont tend to minimize rape and abuse against women" Except that's what Eoghan has spent this entire fucking thread doing. I swear no matter what the post topic is, his response will be 'women are evil socialist nazis who are trying to devour all male babies alive!!!'

David Futrelle
14 years ago

>Cold, I simply don't understand your comment. What's your point about the study?For plenty of female in prison rape jokes, try this:http://www.google.com/search?q=prison+bull+dyke

Eoghan
14 years ago

>DarkSideCatDont be telling lies about people. Feminism minimizes rapes and hides rape victims by presenting rape as gendered and political and mocking and suppressing advocates for politically incorrect victims of rape.Here is a good example, feminists disrupting a cas victims forum and claiming that their advocate was "out of the sisterhood" for advocating for politically incorrect csa victims. http://www.manwomanmyth.com/video/family/child-abuse/You are projecting the characteristics of feminism onto me.

Eoghan
14 years ago

>Point to where I minimized male on female rape.Heres are the figures I gave for male in female rape (feminist definition so we are calling any type of sexual assault rape).2.3% of women reported forced sex (don't ignore the decimal point)25% of women reported verbal sexual coercionMy figures tally with the feminist 1 in 4 claim and the study itself uses a feminist research method.

Eoghan
14 years ago

>Edit – Heres are the figures I gave for male in female rape (feminist definition so we are calling any type of coercion).

Eoghan
14 years ago

>PamMales are more likely to be abused and killed as children by the main care giver, they are equally likely to be physically assaulted and more likely to be mentally and emotionally abused in relationships.On top of that, by UK home office figures state that they are x8 more likely to the victims of violent crime than women."The fact that men are much more likely to be victimized by violent crime than women is NOT ignored! The fact that, by and large, it is men who are more likely to victimize other men in violent crime is something that society and feminism points out, and men don't want to hear that because they think you're saying that man=bad woman=good, when that is NOT what we are saying!"Thats not the case, feminists will generally focus only on the crimes that men comit against women and then when its pointed out that women are far safer in society than men are, a feminist will point to the fact that outside the home, most violent crimes thats committed against men is committed by other men as if the status of the victim changes depending on the sex of the perp and as if the minority of violent men proves that they are correct about men in general, which it doesn't. The status of the victim and the seriousness of of the abuse changes in the mind of a feminist depending on the sex of the victim or perp is so even when they are acknowledging that men are far more likely to be victimized in society they are still applying their sexist, man bad/woman good double politically correct standards. See how female on child abuse was turned into, but why are women the main care givers? Note the shift of responsibility away from the female abuser onto society and men and when its men being victimized more often the responsibility is shifted onto men in general as you did there. Also see how DarkSideCat interprets equal rights for rape, abuse and violence victims as minimizing violence and rape against women, who are the least likely members of society to experience violent crime.Man bad/woman good is inherent in feminist ideology and thought, feminists just cant see it, too close the forest you see.

Eoghan
14 years ago

>Here is a good piece from a mens rights site about the double standard and DarkSideCat's position – that equal rights for abuse victims is minimizing the abuse that females suffer and the position that when men suffer abuse at the hands of women and other men, its their own fault."I stumbled upon an interesting topical discussion on NPR about the sexual abuse of black boys. The discussion was only thirteen minutes long, so it was limited in terms of what could be discussed.What I found most interesting was Dr. Carl Bell’s acknowledgment that there is a double standard in how people react to hearing about sexual violence against boys versus acts against girl because many people contend that the double standard is fair, or in the case of feminists, non-existent.When I noted the difference in how differently people would respond to someone joking about female victimization, feminist blogger Cara not only claimed that this was not true, but considered it an attack on female victims to even suggest that no one would tolerate that kind of joke against women. From a feminist perspective, sexual violence against males, especially when committed by women, is little more than an extension of male privilege and society’s endorsement of it is, as Cara phrases it, paternalism — regardless that feminists represent the most vocal group that renders sexual violence against boys and men invisible and treats it as something other than rape.Like Cara, those feminists disregard the notion that any of the women and girls who rape boys are individually or collectively responsible for their actions, nor do they acknowledge that women benefit from the privilege of having their sexuality viewed as so harmless as to be more helpful than traumatizing when they force themselves sexually on others. Instead, the blame is placed on males, on male privilege and paternalism, and on the victimized boys and men by virtue of their gender and their inherent complicity in the “patriarchy.” This coincidentally, meets Cara’s definition for “rape apologism,” one in which she and the other feminists on the thread completely ignore the responsibility women have to prevent the female predation on boys and men. Their solution to addressing female sexual violence against males is to alter society’s perception of masculinity, not discuss what leads women and girls to rape males or address society’s (and feminists’) perception of female sexuality as harmless…."it continues here, on one of the mens rights sites that David wants to suppress. http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/being-a-boy-sexual-abuse-often-taboo-for-black-boys/

DarkSideCat
14 years ago

>@Eoghan, yeah, an antifeminist blogger's unsupported statements are really an unbiased report. The vast majority of boys and men who are raped are raped by other men, not women and girls. Are there some boys and men that are raped by women and girls? Yes. Are they a majority of victims? No. Is anything in your last post in any way relevant to the topic at hand or supports your wild assertions? No. Is the link you cite in your last post something that can be debunked by even a look at major feminist blog activity in the past few days? Yes. Here's a discussion from Feministing from yesterday entitled 'The West Virginia Oral Sex Case and the Seriousness of Sexual Assault Against Men' where the poster discusses both her personal bias and victim blaming going on around the case http://feministing.com/2010/11/08/the-west-virginia-oral-sex-case-and-the-seriousness-of-sexual-assault-against-men/ Here are posts from feministing and feministe about police violence against people of color, specifically discussing the reaction to the sentencing of Oscar Grant's killer http://feministing.com/2010/11/05/breaking-oscar-grants-killer-johannes-mehserle-gets-probation/ http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/11/08/follow-up-donate-to-legal-aid-for-protesters-of-police-violence/ Notice that all of these posts are just from the past few days. Here's another post from feministing, this one is a bit older (i.e. a few weeks) discussing the sexual abuse of black boys in particular http://feministing.com/2010/09/27/cnns-don-lemon-does-courageous-reporting-on-male-sexual-abuse/MRAs who like to talk a lot about what feminists do and do not do have a habit of complete and utter ignorance of actual feminist blogs and writing.