The other week, a sandwich salesman plead guilty to paying under-aged prostitutes for sex. The internet exploded with memes similar to the cartoon featured to the right, celebrating the sandwich salesman’s probable prison rape. Liberals, Anti Police violence protestors, progressives and feminists circulated these memes celebrating the prison rape culture right along with conservatives and fundamentalists.
Prison rape is a matter of STATE POLICY. All the rapists are known to the prison system for what they are. They are not punished for their deeds in spite of the fact that these deeds are conducted while under the control and supervision of the STATE. Prosecutors coerce plea agreements of guilty with probation and openly use the threat of prison rape as a part of their coercive methodology. This makes prison rape an arm of STATE POLICY.
The United States has the largest prison population in the world and according to Prison Policy Initiative, there are more than 2.4 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,259 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories.
Prison rape is rampant in this system, and winked at, at times even encouraged, by that system. Does this make Uncle Sam and the State governors, the most frequent rapists in the world?
Several years ago, California State Senator carol Liu had a proposed bill to make raping women in Prison a special category felony and making guards and wardens accountable for the rape of women in prison. When I and several other males suggested she rewrite the bill so that it was gender equal and the rape of men in prison was also a special category felony, and the guards and wardens were also held accountable for the prison rape of men under state care and custody, she sited the “impracticalities” of that as law. Oddly, she withdrew the bill all together. Could it have been concern about creating a controversy in an election year? Regardless, rather than protect men AND women as opposed to JUST women, she chose to protect no one.
By Steve Lamb