I’m getting into the new prison rape regulations filed about a year late by the Obama Justice Department and found the first loophole.
It’s a big one.
I’ll quote the part that certainly was not written by people who want to minimize rape in prison:
Some may see the light at the end of the tunnel in this paragraph. Others may see a hole big enough to drive two Mack Trucks through.
“Notably, the standards are generally not outcome-based [emphasis added], but rather focus on policies and procedures.
“While performance-based standards generally give regulated parties the flexibility to achieve regulatory objectives in the most cost-effective way, it is difficult to employ such standards effectively to combat sexual abuse in confinement facilities, where significant barriers exist to the reporting and investigating of such incidents.
“An increase in incidents reported to facility administrators might reflect increased abuse, or it might just reflect inmates’ increased willingness to report abuse, due to the facility’s success at assuring inmates that reporting will yield positive outcomes and not result in retaliation.
“Likewise, an increase in substantiated incidents could mean either that a facility is failing to protect inmates, or else simply that it has improved its effectiveness at investigating allegations.
“For these reasons, the standards generally aim to inculcate policies and procedures that will reduce and ameliorate bad outcomes, recognizing that one possible consequence of improved performance is that evidence of more incidents will come to light.”
A press release from Just Detention International, which used to be called Stop Prison Rape:
FINALLY — NATIONAL STANDARDS TO STOP PRISONER RAPE
Nine years after passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) of 2003 and almost two years after missing its statutory deadline, the Department of Justice releases strong, binding standards to end sexual abuse in U.S. corrections facilities
U.S. Department of Justice statistics say 216,600 people are sexually abused in prison every year.
Highlights:
PREA applies to all federal confinement facilities; several agencies – including the Department of Homeland Security – now need to develop PREA standards.
Ban on routine pat-down searches of female adult inmates by male staff.
Strong protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) inmates.
Youth in adult facilities will no longer be detained in housing units with adults.
All facilities must be audited by independent auditors every three years.
Washington, D.C., May 17, 2012 – Today the Department of Justice finally issued its long-delayed national standards aimed at ending the crisis of sexual abuse in U.S. corrections facilities. Mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) of 2003, the new regulations are a milestone in the effort to end rape and other forms of sexual victimization of inmates. The PREA standards are immediately binding on federal prisons; other facilities have one year to comply.
According to the Department of Justice’s own estimates, at least 216,600 people are sexually victimized every year while in prisons, jails, and youth detention facilities.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics released a study based on 2008 data today.
A major new Department of Justice study – also released today – confirmed the crisis of sexual abuse in U.S. detention, finding that a shocking one in ten state prisoners had been victimized during their most recent period of detention.
“Sexual abuse in detention shatters hundreds of thousands of lives of men, women, and children every year,” said Lovisa Stannow, Executive Director of Just Detention International.
“We have fought long and hard for the PREA standards.
“They have the potential to cut prisoner rape dramatically.”
Today’s PREA standards cover
federal [prisons]
state prisons,
jails,
youth detention facilities,
police lock-ups, and
community corrections facilities (such as halfway houses).
They detail concrete, common-sense steps that facilities must take to prevent and respond to sexual abuse, incorporating many – though not all – of the reforms championed by Just Detention International.
Founded in 1980 by a prisoner rape survivor, Just Detention International was instrumental in developing and securing the passage of PREA and has since led the push for strong, binding standards.
Unfortunately, the standards include several dangerously weak points.
This floor of the McHenry County Jail where illegal aliens are housed are not affected by the new Federal anti-rape regulations. Homeland Security promises, however, that parllel regulations will be revealed within 120 days.
For instance, while banning routine pat-down searches by male staff of female inmates, they fail to prohibit female staff from conducting pat-down searches of male inmates, even though the Department of Justice’s own study released earlier today showed widespread abuse by female staff of male inmates.
Additionally, the Obama Administration chose not to apply the PREA standards to immigration detention facilities, contrary to Congressional intent.
The Administration did, however, issue a crucial Presidential Memorandum this morning, confirming that PREA applies to “all agencies with Federal confinement facilities.”
In response, the Department of Homeland Security, which administers immigration detention facilities, already announced that it has begun developing its own PREA standards and will issue a draft for public comment within 120 days.
“The Presidential Memorandum rightly points out that all federal agencies must comply with PREA,” said Stannow.
“In the coming year, Just Detention International looks forward to working with these agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Defense, to finalize their PREA standards.”
Among the many strengths of the PREA standards, they require that particularly vulnerable inmates – such as those who are
lesbian,
gay,
bisexual, or
transgender
–be housed safely.
They spell out requirements for inmate education and staff training on sexual abuse prevention, including specialized training for investigative and medical staff.
The standards also demand that facilities offer survivors access to rape crisis counselors – trained experts who provide crisis intervention and emotional support in the aftermath of an assault.
The Obama Administration dragged these regulations out for years.
The standards require that youth in adult facilities no longer be detained in housing units with adults.
Crucially, the standards remove a proposed 20-day time limit for victimized inmates to report the abuse, and they also insist that all facilities be audited by independent auditors every three years.
Many prisons and jails started adopting draft versions of the PREA standards years ago, in collaboration with Just Detention International. State prisons in California and Oregon and the Miami-Dade County jail are among facilities that already have launched groundbreaking projects aimed at ending sexual abuse of inmates.
“We know from our extensive on-the-ground work that the PREA standards can transform corrections culture,” said Stannow.
“Working inside prisons and jails, we have seen how basic, low-cost changes to policy and practice can trigger enormous improvements in transparency, respect between staff and inmates, and overall safety.”
Survivors of sexual abuse in detention have been at the forefront of the fight for strong PREA standards.
One of them, Jan Lastocy, who was raped several times a week for seven months by a Michigan prison official while serving time for attempted embezzlement, said:
“I have dreamed of this day for years. The PREA standards aren’t perfect, but they are an amazing tool for making prisons safer,” said Lastocy, a member of Just Detention International’s Survivor Council. “I don’t need revenge. All I want is to know that others won’t have to live through the horror I endured. Now we need to use these standards and stop prisoner rape once and for all.”
For more information, or to speak with a survivor of prisoner rape, please contact Jesse Lerner-Kinglake at jkinglake@justdetention.org. Tel 213-384-1400, ext. 113; cell: 424-230-4540.
AP wrote a story about the Obama Administration's Title IX campus rape regulations Sunday.
Eric Holder begins his introductory remarks to U.S. Justice Department web site readers with this statement:
“The primary mission of the United States Department of Justice is to do justice.
“Our only responsibility it to do the right thing.”
If Holder really believes that why has he not met the statutory deadline for issuing rape in prison regulations.
The deadline was June 23, 2010.
It’s almost two years later.
In June of 2009, proposed regulations were made public.
There was a comment period.
It’s long over.
The Washington City Newspaper had an article covering a Jue 23, 2010 press conference by Lovisa Stannow, Just Detention International (previously called Stop Prison Rape) Executive Director.
Naturally, she decried that day’s missed deadline.
It’s now almost two years later.
A former white collar criminal from a Colorado prison also spoke.
Let me show you the part about him:
“Scott Howard-Smith, a survivor of sexual abuse while incarcerated on theft and tax code violation charges, also shared his story on the call.
“‘The attacks that I suffered were devastating,’ said Howard-Smith, who detailed how a white supremacist gang in his Colorado prison ‘raped, assaulted, and extorted’ him in an attempt to convince him to commit fraud on their behalf.
“The abuse didn’t stop with fellow inmates.
“‘My efforts to report were often fruitless,’ Howard-Smith says.
“Corrections officers refused to help him unless he identified all of his assailants by name and detailed their illegal activities, a move Howard-Smith thought would have put him at greater risk in the facility.
“Other officials informed Howard-Smith that ‘as a homosexual I should expect to be targeted by one gang or another,’ while refusing to offer him added protections.”
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
(Virginia U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf seems to be the main pushing Holder. He and other need to push more.)
Another part of President Barack Obama’s administration, the U.S. Department of Education, did manage to promulgate regulations against sexual assault on college and university campus.
An Associated Press article on Sunday, May 22, 2012, reported on that. (Can’t find the Sun-Times link, but here’s the one to the USA Today story.)
That version reports,
“…as Title IX is now interpreted…colleges must respond if a sexual assault is reported, even if prosecutors refuse to get involved.
“Moreover, they face often precise instructions from the government for conducting their investigations and proceedings, and even the standard of proof to use.”
Now, why would the Obama folks go after rape in college, but not in prison?
Could it be because college coeds can vote and most prisoners can’t?
The Daily Herald has a story about an audacious rape by a 16-year old of a 15-year old girl, not once, but three times in a Barrington High School stairwell.
Barrington High School. Photo credit: Wikipedia.
“’The high school has an extensive video surveillance system and campus attendants who regularly monitor student behavior throughout the 72-acre, 570,000-square-foot complex,’ [District 220 Superintendent Tom] Leonard wrote.
“’Unfortunately, cameras and attendants cannot be focused everywhere at once. The brief encounters did not disrupt or attract attention and allegedly occurred in two secluded stairwells at the high school, just beyond the view of video cameras,’” reports the Daily Herald.
From letters and testimony during the 1990′s about sexual assaults in Illinois prison, I know it occurs.
I also know that the Illinois Department of Corrections could greatly diminish such demonstrations of dominance by installing cameras.
When I had DOC cost it out, the price was $11-12 million.
Never enough money, naturally.
And DOC really doesn’t care about prisons having sex in prison.
Some of the victims are so cowed by threats that the sex acts appear to be consensual.
So, it seems obvious neither Illinois’ so-called “Correctional Centers” nor Barrington High School have enough protection for their wards.
And, come to think of it, high schools have a lot more in common with jails than rapists.
"Shawshank Redemption" star Tim Robbins in the prison yard.
Dennis Miller was not optimistic about the future of former Governor Rod Blagojevich.
He called him “BlagojeFISH.”
As many of you may know, my legislative social conscience cause during the 1990′s was stopping rape in prison.
The stories, given wide publicity by the 1994 movie “The Shawshank Redemption,” are about how toughened inmates watch the newly-incarcerated walk by yelling,
“New fish!”
Will an inmate come up to Rod Blagojevich and say, "I like your hair"?
Thomas Puchmelter hung himself in his McHenry County Jail cell last weekend.
While the Sheriff’s Office has not released much information. Daily Herald reporter Harry Hitzeman writes that a Freedom of Information request has been filed for the internal investigation report, which Undersheriff Andy Zinke says is not completed.
What struck my eye in the Daily Herald story was the following paragraph about an interview with his mother, an assault on whom led to his jailing:
Thomas J. Puchmelter decided death was better than state prison. This is the photo of when he was arrested by Crystal Lake Police.
She says Thomas was taking anti-anxiety medication and was probably mentally ill. She said her son went to prison in Joliet earlier in his life and was terrified of going back.
With all the correspondence I have received from men who have been raped in prison during my last six years in the Illinois General Assembly, please excuse me if I think such an experience might have been going through Thomas Puchmelter’s mind as he debated whether life in prison could be worse than death.
The following letter from Just Detention International Executive Director Lovisa Stannow about the U.S. Justice Department’s belated request (regulations were supposed to go into effect last July 1st, according to the law) for comments on its proposed rape in prison regulations provides up to date information:
Justice Department Confirms Appalling Human Rights Crisis: 216,600 Inmates Sexually Abused in One Year
At long last, yesterday the Department of Justice launched its 60-day public comment period on proposed national standards addressing sexual abuse in detention. In an extensive report, the Department also released, for the first time, its own estimate of the number of inmates who endured sexual abuse while behind bars in a one-year period: 216,600.
That’s right: 216,600. This number is a devastating confirmation of what JDI has claimed for years — sexual abuse in U.S. detention is a horrific, nationwide human rights crisis.
Let’s put 216,600 in perspective: almost 600 prisoners a day are subjected to rape and other forms of sexual abuse while in the government’s care.
Or, put differently, 25 inmates are abused every hour of every day.
That number reflects only the first time each person was victimized during a one-year period; the number of incidents of sexual abuse is several times higher, as many inmates are assaulted again and again.
Prisoner rape survivors continue to be locked up with their assailants, unable to escape — forced to live in constant fear of another attack, their trauma renewed every time they see their abusers. These are our fellow human beings; men, women, and children who one day will return home to their families and communities.
At JDI, we hope that these shocking numbers will, once and for all, force the corrections community to acknowledge the full extent of the crisis of sexual abuse and rally in favor of strong national standards to end it.
After an initial review, we can say that the revised standards contain both positive points — such as requiring staff to consider the factors that make someone more vulnerable to abuse when making housing decisions — as well as negative ones — such as allowing prison grievance policies to put harsh limits on how much time a survivor has after an assault to file a formal report.
As we continue our analysis of the standards, we will provide you with further updates and insights — and we encourage all of our supporters and allies to join us in providing feedback on the revised standards.
After the conclusion of the 60-day public comment period (March 24) the Department of Justice will review the input it has received and modify the measures before formalizing them as federal regulations. According to the press release accompanying the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Justice Department plans to complete this process before the end of 2011.
Thank you for helping us make sure that the Department of Justice and corrections facilities across the country take seriously their responsibility to end the sexual abuse of inmates.
There is a way to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in prison.
But it goes against the grain of everything considered by liberals as politically correct.
The way to do it is to test all of the prisoners periodically and house those who are HIV-infected separately from those who are not.
When I was on top of this subject in the mid-1990′s, three or four states followed that almost guaranteed course of protecting uninfected inmates from those who are HIV-infected.
I talked to a former Illinois Corrections official working in Louisiana’s prison system, one of the ones that housed the infected separately from the infected.
(The liberals opposed to this practice always called it “segregation,” thus putting a racial twist on a disease that infects all races.)
The former Illinois DOC employee told me when they first instituted the policy, they put up a chain link fence between the two sections.
Guess what?
The prisoners were having sex through the links.
Louisiana solved that problem by putting up another fence 12 inches away.
The point is that prisoners are not responsible people. If they were responsible, they would not be behind bars.
Now comes my former colleague Monique Davis, who sat across the center aisle from former State Rep. Tom Johnson and me in the 1990′s, sponsoring a bill to distribute condoms in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
She has gotten the bill out of committee.
Giving prisoners condoms will not stop rape in prison.
If you are interested in the problem, here’s some more information.
The DOC has pretty much a three money approach to HIV.
Although an almost half million dollar CDC study in the early 1990′s proved that HIV was being spread behind Illinois prison walls, the Department refused to do anything significant about it.
Even when I found a “face”–Michael Blucker, then of Crystal Lake–who could proved he was HIV-infected in prison.
DOC decided to institute “peer counseling.”
Big deal.
Inmates don’t put on condoms when they are about to rape someone.
If a subservient inmate agrees to “hook up” with a dominant inmate in order not to be randomly raped, the dominant male may use a condom. That happened to Donny Donaldson, who wrote the brief
But the rape is not less a rape, even if it looks consensual.
How bad is it?
“The horrors experienced by many young inmates, particularly those who are convicted of nonviolent offenses, border on the unimaginable.
“Prison rape not only threatens the lives of those who fall prey to their aggressors, but it is potentially devastating to the human spirit.
“Shame, depression, and a shattering loss of self-esteem accompany the perpetual terror the victim thereafter must endure.”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Farmer v. Brennan
That is the top item on the newly re-named Stop Prisoner Rape organization. It is now called Just Detention International.
With the driving of religion out of all forms of public life it is refreshing to see that the much criticized Texas Department of Corrections has the courage to allow a faith-based section of a prison.
Ever since I entered the Illinois House of Representatives in 1973, the Department of Corrections has been misnamed.
It doesn’t “correct” prisoners.
It punishes them.
If “Truth in Labeling” laws could be applied to governmental entities, a name change would be mandatory.
Even Governor Rod Blagojevich resurrection of the Sheridan Correctional Center as a drug rehab place is severely suspect.
I have heard from more than one source that probation officers are told not to blemish Sheridan’s reputation by sending those with paroled infractions back to jail.
So, I’d like to point folks to some real good news. In fact, it even sounds like Good News.
In an Associated Press story by Dave Carey, which I first saw last Sunday in the Daily Herald, but will link to an October 13th International Herald Tribune story in the hope that it will work for more than a week, there is a report of
“the Carol Vance Unit, founded in 1997 on the outskirts of Houston. It’s the oldest of a rapidly growing number of faith-based prison facilities across the nation.”
Ten states now have such programs…as close as Iowa and Missouri.
I first heard about this idea when I was serving with my seatmate State Rep. Tom Johnson, who was chairman of the Prison Reform Committee. He showed me a newsletter from Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship organization with an extraordinary story about a prison in Brazil.
It was operated with only a handful of guards and escapes were nil.
Inmates had to be Christians to gain entry and, just like Paul with the earthquake would have allowed him to escape, they stay behind bars for their punishment.
The warden in Texas, Cynthia Tilley, says she loves the place.
“It’s so calm.”
These don’t work without volunteers.
It’s not that Illinois prisons don’t have Christian volunteers. I met a man on a Walk to Emmaus who found Jesus in Jacksonville’s prison. He certainly seemed like a changed man to me.
Reporter Carey is writing a balanced article, though, and adds this in the beginning:
“Evidence that they reduce recidivism is inconclusive, and skeptics question whether the prevailing evangelical tone of the units discriminates against inmates who don’t share their conservative Christian outlook.”
However, evidence is strong that violence and trouble-making drop sharply in these programs, and they often are the only vibrant rehabilitation option at a time when taxpayer-funded alternatives have been cut back.
Ask the inmates and they say they “are treated with respect. They have hope.”
That is so different from what happens in Illinois prisons, at least the ones I visited in the late 1990’s.
Most states let Prison Fellowship run their programs. Florida does it on its own.
The three prisons (two for men, one for women) have 30% fewer infractions than the others.
I’ll be the guards fight to work there.
In Texas, men are eligible only the last two years of their sentence.
One inmate, Raymond Halls, convicted of murder at age 16 and sentenced to 15 years, said,
“In my other prison, on a daily basis there was rape, drugs. When you come to Carol Vance, it’s like a load is lifted. It’s like heaven.”
A volunteer teaching Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” admonished his class:
“You guys are a chosen nation. You go out from prison with a different mind-set from guys not in this program.”
Each prisoner has a mentor in and after prison. Besides the state-run prisons, Corrections Corporation of America has 24 prisons in 13 states with “faith pods.”
More information on the Texas program can be found at this web site.
With the driving of religion out of all forms of public life it is refreshing to see that the much criticized Texas Department of Corrections has the courage to allow a faith-based section of a prison.
Ever since I entered the Illinois House of Representatives in 1973, the Department of Corrections has been misnamed.
It doesn’t “correct” prisoners.
It punishes them.
If “Truth in Labeling” laws could be applied to governmental entities, a name change would be mandatory.
Even Governor Rod Blagojevich resurrection of the Sheridan Correctional Center as a drug rehab place is severely suspect.
I have heard from more than one source that probation officers are told not to blemish Sheridan’s reputation by sending those with paroled infractions back to jail.
So, I’d like to point folks to some real good news. In fact, it even sounds like Good News.
In an Associated Press story by Dave Carey, which I first saw last Sunday in the Daily Herald, but will link to an October 13th International Herald Tribune story in the hope that it will work for more than a week, there is a report of
“the Carol Vance Unit, founded in 1997 on the outskirts of Houston. It’s the oldest of a rapidly growing number of faith-based prison facilities across the nation.”
Ten states now have such programs…as close as Iowa and Missouri.
I first heard about this idea when I was serving with my seatmate State Rep. Tom Johnson, who was chairman of the Prison Reform Committee. He showed me a newsletter from Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship organization with an extraordinary story about a prison in Brazil.
It was operated with only a handful of guards and escapes were nil.
Inmates had to be Christians to gain entry and, just like Paul with the earthquake would have allowed him to escape, they stay behind bars for their punishment.
The warden in Texas, Cynthia Tilley, says she loves the place.
“It’s so calm.”
These don’t work without volunteers.
It’s not that Illinois prisons don’t have Christian volunteers. I met a man on a Walk to Emmaus who found Jesus in Jacksonville’s prison. He certainly seemed like a changed man to me.
Reporter Carey is writing a balanced article, though, and adds this in the beginning:
“Evidence that they reduce recidivism is inconclusive, and skeptics question whether the prevailing evangelical tone of the units discriminates against inmates who don’t share their conservative Christian outlook.”
However, evidence is strong that violence and trouble-making drop sharply in these programs, and they often are the only vibrant rehabilitation option at a time when taxpayer-funded alternatives have been cut back.
Ask the inmates and they say they “are treated with respect. They have hope.”
That is so different from what happens in Illinois prisons, at least the ones I visited in the late 1990’s.
Most states let Prison Fellowship run their programs. Florida does it on its own.
The three prisons (two for men, one for women) have 30% fewer infractions than the others.
I’ll be the guards fight to work there.
In Texas, men are eligible only the last two years of their sentence.
One inmate, Raymond Halls, convicted of murder at age 16 and sentenced to 15 years, said,
“In my other prison, on a daily basis there was rape, drugs. When you come to Carol Vance, it’s like a load is lifted. It’s like heaven.”
A volunteer teaching Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” admonished his class:
“You guys are a chosen nation. You go out from prison with a different mind-set from guys not in this program.”
Each prisoner has a mentor in and after prison. Besides the state-run prisons, Corrections Corporation of America has 24 prisons in 13 states with “faith pods.”
More information on the Texas program can be found at this web site.
The following press release was received from Stop Prison Rape, an organization I worked with while Stephen Donaldson was its president and I served in the Illinois House of Representatives.
I note that it has an outside agency investigating prison rapes. In legislation I proposed, the State Police would have done such investigations. Texas created a “sexual assault ombudsman.”
Stop Prisoner Rape Welcomes Passage of Texas Prisoner Rape Legislation
LOS ANGELES, MAY 22, 2007 – The Texas legislature passed a bill yesterday addressing one of the state’s most neglected human rights violations – prisoner rape.
Senate Bill 1175 (SB 1175) establishes critically-needed external oversight of Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) facilities by creating a sexual assault ombudsperson. The ombudsperson is independent of the TDCJ and is mandated to supervise administrative sexual assault investigations. Such independent monitoring is vital to ensuring that sexual abuse is dealt with appropriately.
The bill also eliminates the TDCJ’s troubling 15-day deadline for filing a grievance after a sexual assault. Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR) has long opposed such a narrow window for filing a formal complaint.
“SPR is encouraged that Texas lawmakers have taken decisive action to address the problem of prisoner rape in TDCJ facilities,” said SPR’s Co-Executive Director Lovisa Stannow. “We urge Governor Perry to take the final step and sign this bill into law.”
As one of the key supporters of this legislation, SPR brought experts and survivors of prisoner rape to testify before the Texas House Committee on Corrections and the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice.
If the bill is signed, Texas will be only the second state – after California – with a law specifically addressing sexual assault in prison.
This is a journal of news and opinion designed to bring to light matters of public interest and to encourage public participation in the governmental process.
Emphasis will be on McHenry County, but Illinois state news will be covered. Articles and photos are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without explicit written permission.
