The Bureau of Justice Statistics released the report as required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. The commission proposed a set of standards aimed at eradicating sexual assault in the nation’s prisons and jails.
The American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] accuses the head of the Justice Department, Attorney General Eric Holder, of thus far failing to adopt the proposed standards. But the situation has gotten so severe that the House of Representatives introduced the Prison Abuse Remedies Act, which would eliminate barriers created by the Prison Litigation Reform Act for all prisoners seeking protection of their rights in federal court. The bill has yet to be brought up for a vote.
“The numbers released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics are further proof that rape and other forms of sexual abuse continue to be major problems in our nation’s prisons and jails and that much more needs to be done to combat these ongoing scourges,” said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “Despite recent claims by our government to the United Nations and the world that it is working hard to address these serious constitutional and human rights violations, Attorney General Holder has inexplicably failed to finalize the standards proposed by PREC. Instituting the standards would be a monumental step toward helping corrections officials eliminate sexual abuse in their facilities and it should be done immediately.”
To be fair, the attorney general did speak forcefully and convincingly at the U.S. Capitol a year ago, on the dire need to reform the federal sentencing guidelines and its racial inequities. That bill was eventually passed this year and President Obama signed it into law. The question is, how much longer do current prisoners and jail inmates have to wait in order to seek protection from sexual predators? –terry shropshire
