Not too long ago I posted about a Just Detention initiative designed to send words of encouragement to victims of prison-based sexual assault and rape during the holiday season.

I just wanted to pass along a note I received from Just Detention International.

Hi Figleaf,

Link to Just Detention International This is just a quick note to thank you for your piece about the Just Detention International holiday card campaign to survivors of sexual abuse behind bars! We received several hundred cards from your readers, and they are still coming in. Overall, we now have well over 1,400 wonderful holiday messages. We can’t thank you enough for helping us spread the word! We’ll be sharing responses from survivors who received the cards next month and would love to share them with you and your readers as well. Just let me know if you’re be interested.

Hope you have a great holiday!

The note was to me but really, the thanks go to the hundreds of you from here and the Tumblr blogs that reposted it. A little bit of effort goes a long way.

If in the future you wish to do more than send holiday wishes to victims of sexual violence in jail, prison, and juvenile and immigration detention the contact for that organization, once again, is

Just Detention International
3325 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 340
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(p) 213.384.1400
(f) 213.384.1411
www.justdetention.org
www.twitter.com/JustDetention
http://www.facebook.com/JDIonFB

To the extent we desire a just society we should also have just detention policies. The policies we tolerate reflect on us, not on those we detain. And to the extent we hold others accountable for their crimes and transgressions so should we be held accountable for their treatment in custody.

Photo by figleaf (hey, that's me!). Posted under a Creative Commons license.

So the other day I gave blood, as I try to do regularly because even if I'll never end up needing blood or blood products to save my life other people frequently do.

And since I've been donating blood for a very long time I've noticed over time how the screening questions have evolved. Mostly by getting a lot longer and a lot more detailed.

And over time reading through the checklist gets to be a bit like reading the rings on an old tree or looking at stamps on an old steamer trunk or passport. This question about sharing needles reminds us, of course, of the HIV epidemic. That question about living in England or Europe since the 1980s reminds us of Mad Cow disease. Another about immigrating or having lived in Southeast Asia is an obscure clue about residual risk of Hansen's disease (a.k.a. leprosy.)

Other clues remind us of what we've learned over time about previously well-known illnesses and, sometimes, indicates tremendous advances in medical technology over the years. Transplantation of dura matter? We weren't always able to transplant brain tissue. That's kind of cool even if it too brings with it a possible risk to subsequent blood recipients of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

And then, sometimes, there are indicators of risk that the deliverers of blood and blood products have to worry about that don't really make it into the rest of society. Even though it's kind of important.

So that's why I wanted to call out a question that showed up relatively recently in the "in the last 12 months have you..." section of the questionaire: have you "Been in juvenile detention, lockup, jail, or prison for more than 72 hours?"

Gee, I wonder why that would be in there?

I really wonder what could happen to someone in less than three days in jail, lockup, or juvenile detention that might put them at risk for donating blood?

You probably noticed that the other day I landed pretty hard on Men's Rights Activists for dropping the ball on the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Now it's time to land a little hard on feminist activists for also dropping the ball.

In my previous post I snarked that since most prisoners are men, and since inmate-on-inmate sexual assault and rape is the most prevalent form of prison rape, that it should have been a slam dunk for MRAs who carp about feminist disinterest to actually get out there and do something.

Now it's time for me to do a little equally deserved snarking at feminists for...

...letting the egregiously conservative, anti-feminist organization "Concerned Women for America" carry their water on prison rape.  I'll get around to explaining how that could have come to pass in a moment but first a little extra prison-rape 101.

Because whereas in raw numbers there are far more male victims, women prisoners are twice as likely to be raped, sexually abused, and sexually harassed in prison.

With rates of rape and sexual assault plummeting over the last 30 years*, at least in the U.S., prison rape remains a proportionately larger and larger reservoir of unambiguous and unrepentant rapists.

Prison rape comes in three very broad categories:

• Same-sex inmate-on-inmate accounts for the largest portion among both male and female prisoners.
• Same-sex jailor-on-inmate accounts for the next largest portion among both male and female victims.
• Opposite-sex jailor-on-inmate assault accounts for the remainder, again among both male and female victims.

Bottom line then is that men aren't safe in all-male facilities, women aren't safe in all-female facilities.  It's not about sex or gender, in other words, it's about what human beings will do to each other given the means, motive, and opportunity.  And prison?  Prison creates a lot of opportunity.  And means.

Contemporary feminism, having been on the vanguard of gender studies for most of the last half century, knows this better than anyone.  Or should.  Contemporary gender studies also better prepares us to recognize the way our social scripts around gender can make it easier to be blindsided when something doesn't fit those scripts. It also makes us at least theoretically better prepared to catch when it.

Some scripts, incidentally, that complicate the issues.  They don't invalidate any of the other scripts.  But falling for them make dealing with an issue like prison rape more complicated.  With the result that on top of what we conventionally understand about prison rape

• Men are roughly half as likely to be either victims or perpetrators of prison sexual abuse.
• Women are roughly twice as likely to be both victims and perpetrators of prison sexual abuse.

The upshot is that in addition to the various unhealthy narratives of humor (by outsiders) and denial (by victims and perpetrators) regarding stereotypical male prison rape there are also an unhealthy number of women prisoners who've been sexually abused by other women, as well as women who've sexually abused other women.  Their experiences aren't being acknowledged or dealt with, often by themselves, almost universally by others.  There are also male prisoners who've been sexually abused by women jailers as well as women jailers who've abused male prisoners.  They too are neither acknowledged or dealt with.

In pretty much all such cases our scripts are even further complicated by the understanding that "oh, well, that's just the way it is in prisons."  No.  It's actually not.  That's pretty much the way we let it be in prisons.

And sweet mother of pearl!  When those men and women, prisoners and jailers alike, leave prison boy do they generally really not want to talk about it!  That being a trick that never really works either.

Whiiiich brings me to the absolutely peculiar circumstance that

• Even though proportionately women are twice as likely as men to be raped, sexually assaulted, or sexually harassed in prison, prison rape is on very few feminist's radar the way, say, campus rape, date rape, or public or workplace sexual harassment is. And...
• Even though in raw numbers at least twice as many men as women are raped, sexually assaulted, or sexually harassed in prison, prison rape is in very few men's rights activists radar either.**  With the very peculiar result that...
• The decidedly anti-feminist, but also decidedly anti-men's-rights neoconservative religious organization Concerned Women for America has been more involved in the prison rape reform effort than all but a very tiny handful of feminist and MRA organizations.

I've already called out MRAs for dropping the ball. Now I'm calling out feminists for not stepping up. Are we really comfortable letting Concerned Women for America pull more weight on the very preventable issue of human beings raping human beings? No matter how we wish to construct it prison rape is a feminist issue, one that's hobbled and hamstrung by gender-bound constructions, and one that we're actually pretty well-equipped to deal with. And look who's out in front of both feminists and MRAs? Yeah, I think that's dumb.

Quick recap of the issue of prison rape from a gender-conscious perspective before I get into how, exactly, I think CWA ended up with more influence on the issue than feminists or MRAs.

• This isn't something men's groups should work on alone, or one for feminists alone either: once you pull the blinders off a lot of interests are *mutual* interests. In raw numbers twice as many women prisoners are raped and sexually assaulted as men... but in absolute numbers there are nine times as many men in prison as women so far, far more men than women are raped in prison.
• Humans are natural power abusers, and we insert a lot of power into sex.  Given the means, motive, and opportunity it's very easy for humans to use sex to dominate and humiliate those they have power over.  As both anti-rape activists and gender deconstructionists know sex of either the assailant or the victim is rarely as significant as the power gradient between them.  Whoever's on top of the power gradient is likely to use it against whoever's on the bottom.
• Inmate-against-inmate is still the primary source of sexual assault.  This isn't to diminish the use of, um, sexual "leverage" against prisoners by their jailors.  Even when it can't be categorized as rape it's still the case that the temptation of jailors to humiliate their prisoners, combined with the almost necessity of jailors to exert psychological and physical dominance over prisoners, it's almost inevitable for jailors to use the power of sex to humiliate and dominate prisoners.  In other words (as I posted here when the news came out) Lynndie England's abuse of prisoners in Iraq wasn't an abberation, she was doing what human beings do when our better natures lose their grip.

Now, about how CWA ended up having more input into the Prison Rape Elimination Act than either MRA or feminist organizations:

Actually I have a good idea about the politics that led to CWA (and, of all things, the even more conservative Southern Baptist Convention) getting involved.  Convicted Watergate felon, neoconservative stalwart, and prison-reform activist Charles Colson has diligently worked on prison reform efforts since his own release from prison.  Colson was essentially a business partner with neocon "all prostitution is sex trafficking and there is no trafficking but sex trafficking" Michael Horowitz, who in turn seems to have been a primary lobbyist for PREA.) Colson.  At the time PREA was in the works Colson and Horowitz worked cheek to cheek with a cabal of other religious neocon organizations including Gary Bauer's American Values, Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, and... Wendy Wright of Concerned Women.  Colson and Horowitz were able to marshal support not only from their fellow neocon NGOs but cosponsorship for the bill from prominent conservatives in the House and Senate.

That's not to say that conservatives were behind the entire initiative.  That honor goes to Human Rights Watch, who in the late 1990s and early 2000s published at least two papers on the issue, "All too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons" in 1996 and "No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons" in 2001.  In 1998 senior Democratic congressional representative John Conyers tried to get prison rape legislation attached to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, with almost no support from either party.  In 2003, though, Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions introduced the PREA, Ted Kennedy co-signed, and the end result passed by wide margins in both houses.

So! For whatever reason Concerned Women really were involved in lobbying for PREA in a way that neither prominent feminist nor MRA organizations were.

And so I'll say to feminist groups what I said earlier to MRAs

If you're interested in commenting on the proposed rules here's the DOJ contact information (note, this is a draft release so there are only placeholders for the date that comments will be closed.  The draft was released Jan. 24, 2011, though, so if you get your comments in by March 24th you'll be fine.

The Department is now publishing this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to propose such national standards for comment and to respond to the public comments received on the ANPRM. DATES: Written comments must be postmarked on or before [INSERT DATE 60 DAYS FROM DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER], and electronic comments must be sent on or before midnight Eastern time [INSERT DATE 60 DAYS FROM DATE OF PUBLICATION IN THE FEDERAL REGISTER].

ADDRESSES: To ensure proper handling of comments, please reference “Docket No. OAG- 131” on all written and electronic correspondence. Written comments being sent via regular or express mail should be sent to Robert Hinchman, Senior Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 4252, Washington, DC 20530. Comments may also be sent electronically through http://www.regulations.gov using the electronic comment form provided on that site. An electronic copy of this document is also available at the http://www.regulations.gov website. The Department will accept attachments to electronic comments in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, Adobe PDF, or Excel file formats only. The Department will not accept any file formats other than those specifically listed here.

Please note that the Department is requesting that electronic comments be submitted before midnight Eastern Time on the day the comment period closes because http://www.regulations.gov terminates the public’s ability to submit comments at midnight Eastern Time on the day the comment period closes. Commenters in time zones other than Eastern Time may want to consider this so that their electronic comments are received. All comments sent via regular or express mail will be considered timely if postmarked on the day the comment period closes.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Robert Hinchman, Senior Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Room 4252, Washington, DC 20530; telephone: (202) 514-8059. This is not a toll-free number.

If you really care about enforcement of the Prison Rape Elimination Act here's your chance to have your say in the matter.

Or are you really going to leave it up to CWA to carry the ball for us?

* Belying man-hating anti-feminist assertions that men are incapable of controlling themselves and thus should never be asked to.

** The men's rights activist Toysoldier being an all too rare exception.

The editors of the big-media blog Big Think interviewed Robert Perkinson, author of “Texas Tough: The Rise of a Prison Empire,” about the social and moral consequences of the 500% increase in the American prison population over the last 20-30 years.

One point stood out, about how our attitudes about prison have affected our attitudes about prison rape, are illustrative in a couple of interesting ways.

Perkinson also talks about the fact that the issue of prison rape is starting to be taken more seriously. “There’s so many people in prison that sexual victimization in prison now has come to constitute a significant portion of the sexual victimizations in the society as a whole,” he says . Aside from the injustice of these in-prison crimes, Perkinson notes that prison rape now constitutes a growing public health risk, as facilities have become incubators of hepatitis B, HIV and antibiotic-resistant tuberculosis. “All of that has consequences beyond prison walls,” he says. “It’s yet another reason to try to use incarceration as a penalty of last resort than a penalty of first resort, as we have started doing in recent years.”

They said it here.

The first point about the statistics of prison rape is a big deal: between the (relative but obviously not absolute) effectiveness of rape prevention among free people and the increase in prisoner populations this is no longer your father’s or mother’s culture of rape. And just to be extremely clear about what I mean that the same things that are true about rape in free culture are true in prison culture: the majority of rapes isn’t just violent attacks referenced in those “hilarious” B-movie/sitcom drop the soap situations, it’s also sexual intimidation, corralling, grooming, “date rape,” “gray area” rape, harassment, deal-offering, calculated seduction, and all the same forms of leveraged, transactional acquiescences we have learned to recognize outside of prison. Rape isn’t just “rape rape” in Whoopie Goldberg’s infamous phrasing, it’s also, y’know, rape. It just happens in prison. And, as Perkinson says, there’s now a lot of it, enough so that it ought to be dominating some of the discourse about rape culture.

I happen to think its not, in part, because the vast majority of prisoners, and thus imprisoned victims, are men and because of the inconceivable clause of bogus Rules of Desire #2: it’s simultaneously inconceivable and intolerable for a man to be sexually desired. In this case the inconceivable part, along with the intentionally (and, as Perkinson notes, increasingly) punitive context trumps its intolerability.

Notice also how Perkinson, probably accurately, understands he needs to recruit other social tropes in an effort to get the problem taken seriously. Check out the wording in the middle of the quote above: “Aside from the injustice of these in-prison crimes, Perkinson notes that prison rape now constitutes a growing public health risk…”

A society that wasn’t dominated by the same paradigm responsible for the Two Rules of Desire, there would be no need to say “Aside from the injustice…” Our society is dominated by it, though, and dominated by rape culture in general.

Seriously,! Among other things if people think prison rape is just one more thing makes people want to avoid prison and thus to avoid committing crimes then what does that say about our attitude towards rape as social control in the rest of society?!? Consider further that to the extent society condones prison rape as part of social control it must also to the same extent condone prison rapists. Which to a startling degree it does. And consider what that says about our attitude towards rapists in non-prison society? And dear sweet mother of pearl what do we imagine happens when such prisoners — victims or assailants alike — finally leave prison. As most of them eventually do, even these days. Hmm? But I digress.

Getting back to the point, our attitudes towards prison rape, including both tolerance and denial, appear to be so ingrained that Perkins must appeal not to our sense of morality, ethics, or respect for human rights but our sense of self preservation. “Aside from the injustice…” the conditions that permit prison rape also incubate those incurable diseases “nice” people like you are petrified of.

In a decent society Perkins would instead be able to say “Aside from the incubation of diseases that could spread to the general population, prison rape now constitutes growing injustice.” And, I’d add, a growing reservoir of tolerance for that could reemerge, despite marvelous inroads since the days in the early 1970s when the local press handled a campus fad for raping student nurses with the same bemused “kids these days” bafflement that they had for streaking. And back when some people thought a man coming home drunk and pinning his sleeping, fed-up wife was just really bad at “foreplay.”

Part of making sure that doesn’t come back involves making sure it’s not being preserved in prison. But… see… I’m doing it too — appealing to social self preservation when the real issue remains, front and center, that rape is rape and that to ignore it, anywhere, is not only to condone it but to condone injustice.