Lehe: Prison Rape Inexcusable

One of President Barack Obama’s first acts as president was to close the Guantanomo Bay… One of President Barack Obama’s first acts as president was to close the Guantanomo Bay detention facility. In the eyes of the world, and most Americans, the order marked a huge step forward for human dignity. After all, how could the United States keep those people jailed without a trial? How could the U.S. engage in torture of prisoners? For many citizens serving time in U.S. prisons, though, life might be better if they had gone ahead and joined Al Qaeda before their court date. At least at Guantanamo, nobody gets raped. Prison rape is far worse than any of the interrogation methods that have induced so much shame. The tragedy of prison rape isn’t just that it violates what we feel are prisoners’ basic human rights. After all, many people believe everyone has a right to health care, too. Yet some Americans still die from curable diseases. The tragedy of prison rape is that it violates the Constitution. Before going the extra mile to provide social services or put on a good face for the world, the president, Congress and courts have a sworn duty to obey the Constitution ‘mdash; and the Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. In fact, this provision is in the Bill of Rights: Even our unsympathetic founding fathers, who left slavery intact and women unable to vote, thought the Constitution was unacceptable without the Eighth Amendment. But is prison rape ‘punishment’? It isn’t stated by law or in any sentence that anyone should ever be raped. No judge ever demands it as penitence for any crime, no matter how horrible, even in a country that upholds the death penalty. Prison rape is a useless punishment anyway. It’s a sentence dealt unpredictably that doesn’t afflict or deter, but actually empowers the strongest, the most violent and the most ruthless. It’s a whip that falls most savagely on the young, the effeminate, the weak, the inexperienced, the trusting and those without gang membership. However, to a simpleton observer visiting the United States, it would be hard to deny prison rape is not part of our punishment system. Some figures claim between 200 and 300 thousand rapes occur behind bars in the United States every year. Yet other estimates put the figure much lower. An iron code of silence reins over so much of prison life that it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. Prison rape happens, but it’s unclear how often and what’s considered rape and who’s doing the raping. It’s undeniable, though, that the American public is brutally tolerant of prison rape and considers it a de facto part of punishment for law-breakers. On ‘CSI,’ the investigators ‘mdash; who are protagonists ‘mdash; threaten suspects with the prospect of prison rape. On a field trip, my roommate’s public high school class walked a cell block while prisoners snarled at them like animals, screaming they were going to rape the boys.’ The message was obvious: ‘Don’t go to prison! You’ll get raped.’ After Enron, California Attorney General Bill Lockyer went on the record with surprising honesty and said, ‘I would love to personally escort [Ken] Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, ‘Hi, my name is Spike, honey.” How can politicians claim that the penal system aims to rehabilitate while turning a blind eye to prison rape? After a man is so abominably dehumanized, we can only hope that the man will be able to carry on the normal functions of life, such as paying taxes, getting his license renewed, giving correct change, counting calories, talking to women, drinking in moderation and thanking customers for doing business with us. It’s profoundly alien for us as students, so pampered and blessed, to put ourselves in the shoes of a man haunted by an endlessly spinning film reel of the very worst that the human beings around him have to offer, and to walk around in those shoes every minute of every day for years or decades. When something so awful happens to someone, it’s sometimes not that the moment flashes back and he pushes it away. Essentially, his mind’s eye is a constant canvas of the nightmare through which he has to squint incessantly to fix on whatever day-to-day hassles the minute demands. Prison is supposed to be a place for a man to reflect on his mistakes, not a place that makes reflection unbearable. Email Lewis at ljl10@pitt.edu ‘ ‘