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Sat 16 Oct, 2004 10:04 am
The New York Times printed this article giving a horrific insight into prison life for the vulnerable.
(Full story here
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/16/national/16rape.html?ex=1255665600&en=d12674f2ec2e8415&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt )
One of the more disturbing aspects is the allegation that Mr Johnson, as a BLACK gay man, was unable to secure any protection....at least in Texas.
"Ex-Inmate's Suit Offers View Into Sexual Slavery in Prisons
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: October 16, 2004
AUSTIN, Tex., Oct. 12 - The inmates at the Allred Unit, a tough Texas prison, mostly go by names like Monster, Diablo and Animal. They gave Roderick Johnson, a black gay man with a gentle manner, a different sort of name when he arrived there in September 2000. They called him Coco.
Under the protocols of the prison gangs at Allred, gay prisoners must take women's names. Then they are assigned to one of the gangs.
"The Crips already had a homosexual that was with them," Mr. Johnson explained. "The Gangster Disciples, from what I understand, hadn't had a homosexual under them in a while. So that's why I was automatically, like, given to them."
According to court papers and his own detailed account, the Gangster Disciples and then other gangs treated Mr. Johnson as a sex slave. They bought and sold him, and they rented him out. Some sex acts cost $5, others $10.
Last month, a federal appeals court allowed a civil rights lawsuit that Mr. Johnson has filed against prison officials to go to trial. The ruling, the first to acknowledge the equal protection rights of homosexuals abused in prison, said the evidence in the case was "horrific."
"I was forced into oral sex and anal sex on a daily basis," said Mr. Johnson, who has been living in a boarding house here since his release in December. "Not for a month or two. For, like, 18 months."
The phenomenon of sexual slavery in prison has only recently emerged from the shadows. Prison rape, in general, has received sporadic notice over the years and sustained attention more recently, with the passage last year of a federal law that aims to eliminate it. But there has never been a comprehensive study of incarcerated gay men subjected to sexual abuse.
Discussing any form of prison rape is difficult. It makes many people uncomfortable. Some find it amusing.
"It has been the subject of mockery and almost sadistic glee," said Margaret Winter, associate director of the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. "But Roderick is a human being who doesn't deserve this, not in a civilized society."
The civil liberties union represents Mr. Johnson in his lawsuit, which will go to trial next summer.
Sipping a beer in the courtyard of a hotel this week, Mr. Johnson displayed the affable good nature of the restaurant manager and car salesman he used to be. He is a compact, trim man - 5 feet, 9 inches, 170 pounds - who dresses neatly, talks easily and has bright, expressive eyes.
"I'm the first person in my family to get a taste of prison," he said, with more than a little shame. His crimes were relatively minor and all nonviolent - burglary, a bad check, cocaine possession - but they were enough to send him to Allred, a maximum security prison 250 miles north of here, on the Oklahoma border. According to state prison records, Allred ranked second among the more than 70 Texas prisons in the number of sexual assaults in the two years ending in August 2003. It reported 50 out of 635, with the Telford unit in Bowie County first, with 59.
Mr. Johnson's suit says he begged prison officials to move him to a unit called safekeeping, where white and Hispanic homosexuals, former gang members and convicted police officers lived. He asked seven times, in writing.
The officials did nothing, saying Mr. Johnson's claims could not be corroborated. At prison hearings, Mr. Johnson said, officials would take pleasure in his plight. They suggested that he was enjoying the rapes, he said.
Mr. Johnson said they told him he had two choices. One was to fight. The other was to engage in sex. The officials deny they mishandled the complaints and the ugly comments attributed to them.
Carl Reynolds, the general counsel of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which runs the Texas prisons, said Mr. Johnson's complaints were properly handled.
"These allegations were investigated by the internal affairs branch of our agency," he said. "There seems to have been a lot of doubt about his motives and his ability to present evidence."............"
In light of the above - further quote from the article:
"He added that the problem of prison rape was real and that Texas was committed to solving it. The new federal law, the Prison Rape Elimination Act, says that, by a conservative estimate, 13 percent of inmates in the United States are sexually assaulted in prison. The law calls for research into the problem by the Justice Department, which will recommend policy changes based on the studies.
A 2001 Human Rights Watch report on prison rape touched on the subject of sexual slavery.
"Six Texas inmates, separately and independently, gave Human Rights Watch firsthand accounts of being forced into this type of sexual slavery, having been 'sold' or 'rented' out to other inmates," the report said. Those inmates, and other Texas prisoners, told the group that sexual slavery "is commonplace in the system's most dangerous prison units." The group said it also "collected personal testimonies form inmates in Illinois, Michigan, California and Arkansas who have survived situations of sexual slavery."
State prison systems elsewhere in the country told Human Rights Watch that prison rapes were relatively rare. Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wisconsin reported fewer than 10 cases annually. Arizona, New York and North Carolina reported 10 to 50."
Rare? Or not reported/investigated?
Prisoners who "grass" others are not popular....
I have never had a prisoner/ex-prisoner who spoke of being raped to me be prepared to report it officially.
However, when I worked at a sexual assault service, one male, and one female, prisoner did attend subsequent to prison rapes...
I wonder if the awful system is at last being challenged????
http://www.justiceaction.org.au/
I have something to confess dearest rabbit.
Your thread made me a little sensitive so I started trolling Aussie sites for signs of hypocrisy. Lo and behold, I find a most superior article showing how Texas prison abuses mirror the scandal of Abu.
It is perhaps disingeneous and political to post it on your thread since it has barely any connection to your theme...but...I was too lazy to start a new thread. Forgive me.
Lord! Oz has NO record in terms of prison humaneness!!!
The Texas thing was just a joke.
I wasn't even panning American prisons - I know (or knew) ours all too well.
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