I know Americans get a justice boner imagining bad criminals getting raped in prison, but is it beneficial for society to put people with a history of violence through living hell then leave them with no job prospects and basically no real opportunities once they are released? Does that set the general welfare of the country up for more prosperity, peace, improvement? Is it really all that surprising all the unique problems the United States has disproportionate to its wealth?
What the hell?<p>Preventing prison rape is <i>100%</i> the responsibility of the guards, and <i>absolutely, emphatically, 0%</i> the responsibility of the inmates.<p>The very existence of this film implies that the inmates have a responsibility to protect themselves while literally being directly under government supervision, which is absurd, inhumane, and blame-shifting. “If you had protected yourself better in prison, despite us literally having armed guards around you, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. So it’s partially your fault, you know.”<p>It also makes the very name “Department of Corrections” a total farce. A purely punitive system with no corrective intent would probably be safer and more humane than this, when we stop pretending there is any rehabilitative value for being there.
> In 2015, New York State prisons began showing state-made orientation videos [...] funded through a grant from the federal government under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA)<p>I'm torn between "if the state officials need to make this video they've failed at something else" versus "well at least <i>some</i> of the officials think it's important enough for a video".
For anyone interested in hearing more inmate voices, Ear Hustle is a great podcast. I just discovered it this year and it has made me think about prison from many new perspectives.<p><a href="https://www.earhustlesq.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.earhustlesq.com/</a>
There's no "vouch" button. I want to undo the "flag"<p>This is a very important issue. Most victims of rape in the USA are men, not women. And, sickeningly, many people are pro-rape when it comes to men in prison.