There is good news, and bad news, and completely predictable news in the fight against prison rape. The good news: the Justice Department last week announced a major new initiative designed to fight against prison rape. The bad news: it’s being opposed by right-wing ideologues. As Think Progress explains:
This week, the Department of Justice published new standards addressing the epidemic of rape and sexual abuse in our nation’s prisons. The guidelines, which apply immediately to federal prisons and give financial incentives for states to comply, are a laudable, widely praised, and long overdue step in combating rape in the United States.
The American Action Forum, a Wall Street-funded group whose C(4) runs millions of dollars in attack ads against Democrats, responded by lambasting the move as too “costly” and “complicated.” …
The Weekly Standard echoed AAF’s response, bemoaning the cost of preventing people from being raped in prison. The total expected cost is less than 1 percent of the overall cost of our prison system and ultimately “end up saving money — for example, by avoiding the medical costs of injuries suffered by rape victims,” according to the New York Times.
The completely predictable news? Men’s Rights Activists are completely oblivious to all this.
If the Men’s Rights movement were truly concerned with helping men, rather than playing “oppression Olympics” and complaining about feminists and women in general, they would be all over this issue. But I have seen nothing about this on any site in the manosphere, aside from one post on the Men’s Rights subreddit that drew all of six (mostly ignorant) comments. (Looking through one large thread on the subject of prison rape that was recently on r/mensrights’ front page, I found zero references to the Justice Department’s new initiative.)
What accounts for this obliviousness? It could be because MRAs tend to regard the Obama administration as a tool of our (imaginary) feminazi overlordsladies. Or because they would have to acknowledge that women are also raped in prison. But I think the real reason is that MRAs are so disconnected from real activists working in the real world to combat prison rape that they are completely unaware of any of this.
If you are interested in getting involved, or just learning more about the issue, I’d suggest checking out the website of the group Just Detention International, which campaigns against prison rape.
For more links, see this post of mine.
So when your hear about a prison rape, do you check is the illegal thing the prisoner did (assuming no innocent is in prison, lol*) is as bad or worse as rape? Say, if I tell you a “droped the soap” joke, you’ll ask me if he didn’t just steal a car? Or does stealing car is worth being raped? How about dealing drugs? Stealing money? Where is the limit, tell us.
*which is one of the reason I’m also against death penalty.
I took a couple of Criminology courses during my undergrad. It was interesting to learn about penal systems throughout history. Unfortunately we pretty much stuck to Western culture. Anyway, we spent some time on “prison culture” and we talked quite a bit about prison rape. I’m pleased to report that no one laughed or made jokes about it. At least in class. I like to think no one did outside of class either. What did disturb me, however, was how accepting people were that rape occurred in prison and that prison rape was “just a given” and how it was probably impossible to stop. Then there was more talk about how it was the same in warfare too. I remember being depressed a lot when I left class.
But he was in prison for murder! And you think raping bad people is funny! How do you know the people you’re laughing are just like Andy?
I have to laugh at you, Kyrie. I’m a law abiding citizen who loves her family, gives to charity, and rescues homeless pets. But, because I don’t think just like Kyrie, I must be a terrible person. Unbelievable.
Ruby, really, shut the fuck up. No, rape isn’t cool ever, even when done to the most saddistic of rapist-murderer-pedophiles. We aren’t having “hategasms” (damn, I’ll be you feel SUPER clever for having made that up don’t you?) because we’re meanie bo beanies who just don’t like you. We call you an asshole because your words reveal you to be an asshole. Rape isn’t justifiable EVER, full stop. You are a horrible person if you can’t recognize that.
On MRAs not having much, if anything to say about this, I’d wager it’s because it doesn’t make things worse for women so it doesn’t count for them. Cause to them, Mens Rights = taking a shit on women.
Kiki said:
“The film you’re thinking of is American History X, and it’s certainly overrated; according to Wikipedia the director tried to ‘Alan Smithee’ the film (ie, have his name replaced with a pseudonym on the credits) after he saw the studio edit. My biggest problem with it is that the Nazi character is constantly spouting bullshit racist talking points and all the other characters – mainly teachers and family – just sit there gawking in shock rather than providing any responses to them, so that the movie, although the narrative is clearly trying to be anti-racist, unintentionally ends up seeming like a bit of a soapbox for bullshit racist talking points.”
I quite liked it when I first saw it but I can see your point. It was certainly supposed to be strongly anti-racist but they seemed to spend a huge amount of time on the racist rhetoric and I can see that it could easily be read as you describe. Racism must be argued with and challenged at every possible opportunity and it’s opponents need to be prepared to do that so they need to get past the natural state of shock when people start spouting that kind of bullshit.
“Other than that, yes, the main turning point in the plot is that Nazi guy is raped by other Nazi guys but befriends one black guy who protects him from all the other black guys in prison. On the plus side, the message is that however much they talk about ‘justice’ and ‘equality for white people’, neo-Nazis are universally just a bunch of lying, sadistic assholes. On the down side, I don’t think the fact that one black guy was nice to one racist white guy is really going to convince anyone who needs convincing that racism is wrong. But ultimately it’s a Hollywood film, so I guess nuanced or detailed analysis was never on the cards. If you want a truly brilliant critique of fascism in a movie, watch Pan’s Labyrinth (and then watch Harry – He’s Here To Help, because Sergi Lopez is awesome).”
I also agree about Pan’s Labyrinth. That film was completely brilliant on so many levels. The interaction of the fantasy story with the bloody, brutal and violent background was beautifully and skillfully handled and made the points about prejudice, sexism, cruelty and war far better than American History X could ever hope to do. When you add to that the beautiful, scary special effects and the glorious score I found it rather overwhelming. I even cried at the end.
Bingo!
“You just call everyone who doesn’t agree with you a bigot”
Next bullshit deflection, please, this one’s getting stale.
I wonder why we would think that? It couldn’t possibly be because you’re celebrating rape could it? Maybe?
Don’t worry rapists! Ruby has your back. Just make sure you rape someone “evil”.
…Now I has a sad.
Right, Ruby, I dislike you because you’re not my clone, not because you laugh at the suffering of rape victims.* You do realize that presently I’m not the one saying that laughing at rape victims is a terrible thing? People that have different thoughts than mine! Troll.
* and also pretend no woman can have different thought than you, and explained that poor people’s suffering don’t bother you, etc etc
Well, while there’s been some discussion about whether Ruby was a troll or no, I’m ready to vote her onto Troll Island after this charming little display.
I would have voted the same way earlier because despite all her little recent one offs trying to show how feminist she is, I still remember some of the nastier stuff she spewed out earlier.
Responding to violence with violence only perpetuates violence, in all forms. Raping rapists does not stop rape. It doesn’t even stop THAT rapist from ever raping again. It only continues the cycle of misery. So even when you look at the situation from a vengeance standpoint, it accomplishes nothing. More people will still be raped, which then will require more vengeance and more rape.
You know that being a law abiding citizen doesn’t completely protect you from prison, right? Andy Dufresne, again. And why are you talking about loving your family? Do you think I don’t? Do you think people who doesn’t are bad people (even if they’re family are abusive, or abandon them?) Why are you talking about pet, do you think that award you a definite “good person” badge? Let’s go all Godwin: Hitler loved dogs! Nazis loved their family! And the law! (especially theirs)
Ruby, do you also support vigilantism? Killing murderers is just justice, right? And I can steal from theft, you’ll support me?
@ithiliana:
I’m willing to believe Ruby believes every word she says. She’s just convinced that we all obviously agree with her as well, and are simply shocked when we turn on her. “But I’m on your side!!!”
Blech… -_-
@blitzgal:
I know the saying “an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind” is a cliche… but… dammit sometimes cliches are accurate. You don’t respond to immorality with more immorality.
Rah, so much typos. I apologize to those who suffered reading them.
Creating a culture of rape in prison means that strong prisoners are taught that rape is normal and right.
And then we release them.
Even if you’re a heartless bastard (hi, Ruby) how dare you create a world where that sort of culture is let loose upon the public? Because that’s what you create.
Fallacy was also surprised (or pretended?) that we didn’t agree with his hate for MRA-on-doll love.
Well, it comes down to tone and anger.
If you can face rape apologists without feeling it, then you’re heartless. That you feel it is just a sign that you’re a human being with functioning empathy.
I can’t speak for anybody but me, but sometimes typos like that give me hope for humanity.
Thanks
…And in one swift move, Ruby makes the topic all about her. If that’s not trolltastic, then I don’t know what is.
Ruby, in what other circumstances does a person “deserve” to be raped? And what makes you the judge? Sounds to me like you have more in common with Paul Elam than anyone here — so why ARE you here?
” I’ll defer to people with more knowledge though, because sad as it sounds I actually know more about US politics and stuff than that of my own country.”
hahah. Considering how ignorant some politicians in my country (US) are right now, it’s also rather likely you know more about US politics than some US politicians 😀
Yeah, I agree, this is a really good conversation. I really don’t know enough about our prison system to say much beyond “it’s broken and needs fixing”, but it’s really nice to hear people saying things that make so much sense- like how it’s a terrible idea for the prison system to be so profitable, and how the punishment system is not the most effective way to deal with crime. That all makes so much more sense than the “prisoners are criminals who deserve to be punished!” conversations that I’ve seen.
Whoa wait! That was in response to ShadetheDruid on the last page. At THAT point it was a really good conversation. And then Ruby showed up… I really should refresh before posting.
Andy Dufresne was a fictional character you fucking twit.
Here, in the real world, there are men who have never victimized an innocent human being who are raped in prison. The vast majority of prisoners have been convicted of nonviolent drug offenses. But your dumb-ass thinks that prisoners have some sort of ingrained set of rules, right? That they only rape murderers, and pedophiles and people who “deserve” it.
And somehow you think that laughing about prison rape is mitigated by the fact that you give a dollar to the charity of the month when the card-reader gives you that option at the grocery store?
Fuck you.
I actually had a childhood friend who was raped in juvie when he was fourteen. You know why I say had? Because he’s dead. Everyone survives sexual assault differently; he didn’t survive it at all. The lack of a support network/counseling meant that he had to process what had happened to him by himself. The kicker? When he got out he had to go home to a neighborhood full of other kids who’d been in and out of the system and knew all about the rapes. It destroyed him. People said he over-dosed. I think it was safe to say it was a suicide His crime? Car-theft. He went joy-riding with friends. He got caught they didn’t.
Fuck you.
You’re not just a shitty feminist, you’re a shitty person.
There was a story going round my city a few months ago that a particularly scary gangster was doling out punishment to male drug addicts that crossed him by raping them. I was really disgusted by the number of people who thought that was funny and made jokes about it – “Cos who cares about a worthless junkie, am I right?”
I don’t care who you are or what you’ve done, NO ONE deserves to be raped – in prison or out. As for finding it funny and joking about it? Ugh! I just don’t have the words for how disgusting that is…
Nobinayamu – I’m so sorry about your friend.