RAPE IN PRISON

Rape in Prison

Rape in Prison

With two million prisoners, U.S. is the world's largest country in terms of numbers of prisonerss preceding China. The incarceration rate of the largest multi-ethnic country in the world is also the highest with 727 people behind bars for 100 000 inhabitants, as against less than 100 per 100000 inhabitants in Western Europe. The trend is upward and for several years, the level of overcapacity in federal prisons is 19%, which makes them almost-paradise compared to 89% over-capacity of state prisons. Men account for 90% of the incarcerated population. 44% of prisoners are black, 40% are Whites, and Latinos represent 15 percent more. Finally, Asians, Indians and people of other origins account for 1-2% of the remaining detainees. Behind prison walls is a particularly violent universe: 70% of inmates are being physically assaulted each year. Nearly a thousand gangs unite the most hardened criminals, often about their ethnicity. Racial tensions are the norm. Drug trafficking and racketeering crimes are insignificant figure. It is in this closed world that the organization Human Rights Watch has conducted the investigation, including testimonies from inmates across the country to take stock of a little-discussed and taboo, male rape. She has revealed real situations of slavery. This reality, an inmate puts it:

"You'd be amazed (as was the case for me) to see human beings are bought and sold like shoes"

The report, issued in April 2001, 22% of American inmates have been subjected to various pressures to engage in sexual acts, and among these, and 50% were forced at least once to be the subject of sodomy. Based on the results of another survey published in Prison Journal - results corroborated by a third survey conducted in Nebraska - the organization estimated that nearly 140,000 inmates were violated, a figure almost exceeds the number of rapes outside of prisons.

It would be wrong to believe in falling into easy clichés, that the practice of male rape in any relationship with homosexuality. The vast majorities of rapists are actually heterosexual and claim it as such (Cindy and David, 2000). Out of prison, they take a heterosexual behavior. Rape victims are male, too, in vast majority of heterosexuals. Homosexuality is, at most, a factor which increases the risk of being violated. The most vulnerable victims of rape are young men. Their arrival in a prison can generate genuine competition among rapists.

A Florida inmate testimony says that "it is mostly boys who are raped because of their youth and their love and their smooth skin, in the spirit of one who violates it thinks the skin soft and imagines while women Prisoners fight each other for a very young but the young know everything about who will see the boy first, and as property”

For a prisoner in Arkansas, "When a new inmate enters a hut, it triggers a sort of competition between prisoners as to who will seduce and subjugate the newcomer. Subduing it is mental, physical, financial and ...