Hardtime

Asymetrical Information has a post up about prison rape referring to this Slate article by Robert Weisberg and David Mills.

While hard data on sexual assaults in prison is not easy to find, and observers dispute the precise frequency, no one who knows American jails and prisons doubts that rape and sexual assault—usually perpetrated by other inmates but occasionally by prison staff—are facts of daily life. What is surprising is how easily the citizenry and the judicial system have come to accept the brutal reality of our prisons and absorbed it into mainstream culture.

The Slate article looks at the Prison Rape Elimination Act that was passed earlier this year. The act seems optimistically named, seeing as how it’s only going to survey the extent of the problem and suggest possible remedies, but it’s a step in the right direction.