The Shame of Our Prisons: New Evidence

nybooks.com

2 pointsbonemachine3 comments

Interestingly, and contrary to the stereotype of most prison rape being perpetrated by proverbial "bunkmates":

The new studies confirm previous findings that most of those committing sexual abuse in detention are corrections staff, not inmates. That is true in all types of detention facilities, but especially in juvenile facilities.

That is so disturbing it exceeds my meager vocabularies ability to adequately to express my disgust.

Yup. Going by their numbers, that's easily tens of thousands of serial rapists / harassers on the government payroll. Well beyond the scale of say, what the Catholic Church has pulled off in recent decades.

Main difference being, of course, that our society tacitly believes that if you're in jail:

(1) you must have done something wrong, otherwise you wouldn't be there.

(2) therefore, on some level you pretty much deserve whatever happens to you there, right?

(3) and if it does you can go ahead and whine about it, but we're not going to scratch our heads over what happens to anyone sorry enough to land find themselves in the 2.3 million-strong population of our internal gulag (ah, "correctional") system, anyway.

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