Since it's prison, it's OK

While continuing my research for my Junior Theme, I found an article about rape and sexual assault in prisons. I'm not a professional on this issue, and I have never been to prison so I do not know what prison is really like, but I know it's not a place where I would like to live. I wasn't surprised, however, when I saw that around 80,000 male and female prisoners report sexual assault each year. This number isn't completely accurate, since many prisoners don't report sexual assault and harassment with a fear of being punished, yet it is still very high.

In 2003, a law was passed (the Prison Rape Elimination Act) to stop sexual assault in prisons. There were rules passed with the law, for example screening the prisoners to see if they were a possible threat before placing them in a cell, but only two states actually listened and followed the law. The ACLU estimated that around two million prisoners were sexually assaulted during the time it took to finalize the law (around 9 years), yet states have not changed their opinion on disobeying the law. The article states that "prisons protect rape culture to protect themselves", which is interesting to me. In fact, 50% of prison rape occurs between a prison guard and a prisoner. In my opinion, this is the most alarming fact in the article. Why do prisons employ men and women who hurt prisoners? I realize that prison guards main job is to keep the prisoners in line, but part of their job is protecting them as well. They are supposed to look out for the prisoners and make sure they aren't being further harmed while in prison, which is why I was shocked that such a high percent of rape was from them. 

I realize that people are arrested for a reason. I like to believe, as many Americans do, that prisoners deserve to be in jail. However, I don't think it is okay to let horrible things happen to them while in prison; they are already being punished for what they did. I don't think our society should be fine with prisoners being raped since they did something bad so they "deserve" it. I think that rape and sexual assault is something that should never be wished upon anyone, no matter the person.