Editorial
When Congress issued the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, that should
have put corrections officials on notice.
The measure requires the Justice Department to study the endemic problem
of sexual assault behind bars and develop a strategy for coping with it. But prison officials have continued to play down
this problem. The costs of denial are on vivid display this month in a federal courtroom in Texas, where a former inmate has
told jurors how corrections officers ignored his written pleas for help, and even laughed at him, while he was repeatedly
raped and sold into sexual slavery by prisoners who viewed him as "property."
The lawsuit was brought by Roderick Johnson, a former Navy seaman who
is openly gay and who landed in prison for violating the conditions of his probation. He was quickly pounced upon and told
that he would have to submit to sex or be killed. Mr. Johnson filed several written pleas to prison officials, asking them
to put him in a secure section of the prison. He says prison officers mocked him, accusing him of wanting to be raped.
According to court documents, vulnerable inmates were told to either
fight it out with rapists or find boyfriends who would protect them in return for sex. Mr. Johnson says gang members were
free to rape him, sometimes by paying a few dollars to the prisoner who in effect "owned" him.
Speaking of prison officials, a witness said, "They seen what was happening
but they pretended they didn't."
In what may be the first case of its kind, Mr. Johnson sued prison officials
and accused them of violating his rights under the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. The trial
has thrown a klieg light onto the endemic problem of sexual assault behind bars. Regardless of the outcome, prison officials should now recognize that business as usual is no longer acceptable, and
that both Congress and the courts are paying attention.
