Dan, you can do better.
January 05, 2006
I love Dan, I really do. I work with him every year at Outfest. One on one, he's a kind, honorable guy. Yet when he goes off on politics, I'm not sure he lives in the same world I, and the rest of Humanity, do.
Take this recent post on the Rikers Island Holding Facility shutting down its segregated unit for gays in favor of a broader, egalitarian "I feel threatened" standard. He says that those on the Left wondering if this is a good idea is basically "whining," that in the interest of equality, gay and lesbian prisoners should be treated just like everyone else.
Provided that the safety concerns of gay and lesbian inmates are met, shouldn’t prisons treat gay and lesbian convicts the same as straight prisoners? The Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force think otherwise. These groups have written Department of Correction Commissioner Martin Horn asking him to “reconsider” his plan to shut down the prison’s dormitory for gay and transgender prisoners.Dan, buddy, have you been to a jail? (I don't think you have.)
Have you counseled people who've been? ( I have.)
Have you sent people to jail, to prison? (I have.)
Today, in 2006, "the safety concerns of gay and lesbian inmates" are simply not being met.
I'm all in favor of jails and prisons. My investigations of child abuse, the subsequent reports I wrote, and the testimony I gave, sent people away. (I waved as they were carted off.) Prison is often the best possible destination for offenders -- in addition to ensuring the safety of the victims and providing punishment for the victimizers, they also have a shot at counseling, education and job training. In short, a second chance. (Far too many fail to take advantage of that.)Yet no one, I mean no one (not even that asshole I investigated who repeatedly raped his children as a means of "discipline") deserves to be raped in jail.
Prison rape is real -- and it ain't the Jeff Stryker fantasy rape kind. It's the soul spiking, real deal. Further, gay men, transgenders, or those who are assumed to be, get raped far more often than everyone else. Let's not even get into what happens to young people who wind up in jail with adults.
It isn't being soft hearted to raise the the issue of rape and violence on people put behind bars --unjust and cruel punishment by definition. It's American. Congress was so cognizant of fears that the State would inflict such punishments on the People that they addressed their and their critics concerns word for word with the 8th Amendment. Our modern congress even followed up on the prison rape issue directly.
As for the "whining" charge? To point out that closing a wing of a jail that focuses on those most at risk, without something else -- other than vague promises -- in place to pick up the slack doesn't sound like a particularly bright idea is actually rather observant.
Being concerned about what happens to people, guilty or innocent, is not just an American value, but a Human one as well. I've never been one for letting my sexual orientation, or my politics, get in the way of that Human compassion and concern.
I'd like to think Dan would do the same.
Note: A friend emailed me and asked basically "What about everyone else?" Just to be clear, no one should be raped or further abused while in prison-- or in a holding jail. It tends to be we godless, un-American Liberals and Progressives who point that out as well. I'd love for New York and every other prison system to stop rape and violence in general behind bars. As I don't see that happening any time soon (starting with shutting down the solution to a problem rather than fixing the problem itself doesn't bode well), keeping gay or identified as gay (something that gets missed in this discussion) in separate quarters isn't a bad idea.Now, if this ruling stands review such practices might be ruled unconstitutional. Be that as it may, I'd rather though wait, plan for that (future) possibility but work in the present to fix the larger sex and violence problems.
Update: Ah. Same friend also pointed out some other folks who could also do better.
Update #2: Dan writes me back back: Thanks for your long rebuttal to my post. I think you raise some valid points and wonder if I may have been too hasty in giving it the title I did. But, I'll let the post stand as you -- and others -- have raised some valid points in the comments and said as much in #21.
Somebody cue Dion Warrwick: That's What Friends are Foooooorrrrrrrr.....
Posted by Jody at January 5, 2006 05:56 PM
Comments
How are gay people 'most' at risk? My brother's straight best friend spent a month at Riker's and came out a heroin addict. The point of many people who wrote about this issue, myself included, is not that jail isn't 'bad'. Just that it's bad for everyone and it makes no sense to have a special wing to protect just gay people.
Posted by: Karol at alarmingnews.com ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://WWW.nakedwriting.COM/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 6, 2006 10:14 AM
Karol, they are most at risk based on the studies that have been done on violence and rape in prisons.
With the Prison Rape Prevention Act passing in 2003 with the first government published statistical study on the subject occurred in 2005. The study found that “…2,100 incidents of sexual violence were substantiated in U.S. prisons, jails, and youth detention centers l[in 2004]. What’s interesting is that 42% of those were staff on inmate assaults.
In 1997, the last year the Feds collected any data prior to the 2003 law, found that most reports of abuse were ignored with 26,000 reported incidents and only about 1300 were referred for prosecution.midwest found one in five men reported sexual coercison and one in ten reported full on rapes.
We know that even the numbers we do have as of 2005 undereport the crime — guys just don’t report the fact that they’ve been raped. (Women, who socially are “allowed” to report rape, still under report.)
We know that “..[m]ale victims are often young, nonviolent, first-time offenders who are small, weak, shy, gay or effeminate, and inexperienced in the ways of prison life” as well as being chosen on “…the weakness and inability of the victim to defend himself.� [link above]
We heard first hand testimony, before Congress this past year of what happened to many people while in either prison or jail, stories that included tales inmate on inmate rapes, guard on inmate rapes, and guards looking the other way while the prior two categories were happening.
As we have the largest percentage of population incarcerated — we beat China — it’s not much of a guess to say that this is a big problem, with no easy answers. However, the "gay wing" of a jail isn't the problem, it's the solution to the result of a deeper one -- the system wide rape that occurs in jail.
Posted by: Jody at January 9, 2006 02:50 PM
Jody, No one disputes that we have a prison-rape problem. National Review's Rich Lowry has been all over it for many years. BUT, no where in your stats does it say that gay people are raped more than straight ones. Being effeminate doesn't translate to gay, imagine being an effeminate straight man who doesn't get access to the 'gay wing'. The problem with this whole thing is that it seeks to protect one segment of the prison population over the whole. Like I said in my first comment, prison is bad for everyone. My brother's friend still is a disaster following his Riker's stint two years ago. We need to fix our prisons. Helping some people avoid danger while leaving others in the middle of it, is not the solution.
Posted by: Karol at alarmingnews.com at January 10, 2006 12:04 PM