Op-Ed: The Hard Truths About Prison Sexual Violence
Ben Carson’s offensive comment Wednesday on CNN—that “being gay is a choice”—rightly continues to drive controversy. But we should also be offended by the prison violence the neurosurgeon and potential Republican presidential candidate described so casually: “Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight—and when they come out, they’re gay. So, did something happen while they were in there? Ask yourself that question.”
The problem with Carson’s comment—for which he’s sort of apologized—isn’t simply that he demonizes homosexuality. He misunderstands the role that rape and sexual assault play in the American incarceration system. Sexual violence pervades U.S. prisons. Until recently, many correctional officials denied rape was a widespread problem. They frequently claimed reports of sexual violence were overstated, or fabricated. Too many victims did not come forward and report violence, because they feared no one would believe them. Too many correctional officers took advantage of the situation.
Jan Lastocy’s case is common. In 1998, Lastocy was a few months away from being released from a Michigan prison when a correctional officer raped her. The officer liked to brag about his power. The warden made clear that she would always believe an officer’s word over any of the “troublemakers.” Desperate to get out of prison, Lastocy decided not to report the assault. In the following months, she was raped over and over again. After her release, the officer raped other prisoners.
Now, we know better than to believe the reports of prison wardens and correctional officers. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency within the U.S. Justice Department, has started conducting a series of anonymous surveys involving hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people. The results are shocking: Correctional officers perpetrate the majority of the sexual violence. Juvenile detention facilities are more dangerous than prisons. In 2012, nearly 209,000 people reported being sexually assaulted behind bars.
The most vulnerable in the system suffer the most: Staff members abuse juveniles in detention facilities, correctional officers rape mentally ill inmates, and military detention facilities are rampant with sexual assaults. Although juvenile facilities were designed to protect and educate minors, they are some of the least protective spaces in the system: Minors held in juvenile detention suffer sexual abuse at twice the rate of their peers in adult facilities. Even when abused minors are moved to a new center, their victimization follows them. More than half are sexually abused again.
Whether in juvenile detention centers or maximum-security prisons, the people most vulnerable to assault are those with a history of sexual victimization. Transgender people are especially vulnerable to bullying and other forms of abuse. The powerful prey on the weak, who become weaker. Part of the problem here is that health care in juvenile centers and prisons is substandard. They don’t offer the sort of psychiatric care that people need.
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed a federal lawsuit last month on behalf of Ashley Diamond, a 36-year-old black transgender woman, alleging that the Georgia Department of Corrections violated her Eighth Amendment rights by not providing access to medically necessary hormone treatments. The suit also alleged the state failed to protect her from harassment and repeated rapes by other inmates.
But the problem of sexual assault is not confined to one side of the cell door. Prison staff members are also subject to abuse. Prison violence is about our willingness, as a society, to look the other way while we send scores of people to institutions that are fundamentally unsafe. Incarceration strips people of their family, community, and autonomy. It feeds, it clothes, it controls. And in a society that values punishment, why shouldn’t correctional officers feel justified in sexual violence? It’s a sick logic, but a logic nonetheless.
The prison industrial complex is inherently flawed. It places bodies – the majority black – in a hidden space without protection.
Ben Carson was wrong to claim that "being gay is a choice," and he was wrong to suggest that prison sexual violence is about sexuality. What happens in prisons isn’t about sexuality. It’s about power.
Original article from TakePart
