Legislation (S. 2619) designed to address the problem of prison rape was the subject of a July 31 hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the bill would:
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“We know that hundreds of thousands of inmates across the nation are victims of sexual assault each year,” stated Sen. Kennedy, presiding over the hearing. “Of the two million prisoners in the United States, it is conservatively estimated that one in ten has been raped,” he continued. “It is long past time to address this issue,” he added.
Testifying before the committee, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), sponsor of a companion bill (H.R. 4043) in the House, agreed. “I believe that our legislation will provide a chance to gain a full picture of how widespread this abuse is and offer incentives for correctional facilities to finally address it,” he asserted. “Prison rape for sure is not a dinner conversation issue,” he said, adding that prison rape “receives virtually no attention by our media, our politicians, or the public at large.”
Rep. Wolf told the committee that society pays a high price for ignoring the problem of prison rape. “Inmates, often non-violent first-time offenders will come out of a prison rape experience severely traumatized and will often leave prison more violent than when they entered,” he said. Also, “the high incidence of rape within prison leads to the increased transmission of HIV, hepatitis and other diseases, which in turn costs all of society,” he explained.
All of the witnesses on the second panel expressed strong support for S. 2619, including Mark Earley of the Prison Fellowship Ministries. “The goal of the bill is very straightforward and would effectively and comprehensively eliminate prison rape while respecting the role of states and local governments in the administration of correctional institutions,” he stated.
Mr. Earley noted that, although the majority of studies on prison rape have focused on men, “we do know that rape is a serious threat for women.” According to one study, “27 percent of female prisoners in a particular facility reported that they had been pressured or forced into a sexual encounter,” he said.
Robert Dumond of Stop Prisoner Rape also noted that “further study of female victimization, which this bill will provide, is warranted. It is not clear which particular characteristics play a role in determining who will be targeted for sexual abuse, but first-time offenders, young women, and mentally-disabled women appear to be particularly vulnerable,” he explained. In the “only two empirically-based studies which have been done, about half of the incidents were committed by other female inmates, and the remaining were committed by male and female custodial staff,” he said.
Mr. Dumond pointed out that, in addition to the physical consequences of assaults and the exposure to disease, “female inmates have been impregnated as a result of staff sexual misconduct.” He added, “Some of these women have further been subjected to inappropriate segregation and denied adequate health care services.”
