“Guilty”: In Steubenville, A Powerful Blow Against Rape Culture Has Been Struck
Something happened today that is exceedingly rare in America, and the world — justice was served in a rape case. News outlets are reporting that 17-year old Trent Mays and 16-year old Ma’lik Richmond, both of whom are star football players at Steubenville High School in Ohio, were found guilty of raping a 16-year old girl last August.
On the one hand, the guilty verdicts shouldn’t be surprising. This case became so notorious largely because there was so much corroborating evidence. Eyewitnesses tweeted about the assault and, horrifyingly, posted photos of the passed out victim on Facebook. There was DNA evidence. Consent was never an issue, because the victim was either unconscious or to intoxicated to give meaningful consent.
On the other hand, many in the town rallied to the rapists’ defense and vilified the victim — a fairly classic move in these cases, particularly in cultures that valorize sports heroes. I’ll never forget an infamous rape case that occurred in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, a town close to where I grew up. In 1989, a gang of high school jocks raped a developmentally disabled girl (she had an IQ of 64) with a baseball bat — and yet the town rallied around the jocks and viciously attacked the girl’s reputation. It was sick. The rapists were convicted, though, and the case was the subject of an acclaimed book.
Getting back to Steubenville, it’s notable that the case was decided not by a jury but by a judge. I have to wonder whether if the case had gone to a jury composed of members of the Steubenville community, the verdict would have been the same.
And again, it bears repeating that rape convictions are exceedingly rare. Using statistics from the Justice Department and the FBI, RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) reports that out of every 100 rapes that occur, 46 get reported to police, 12 lead to an arrest, 9 get prosecuted, 5 lead to a felony conviction, and 3 see the inside of a prison cell. The other 97 lucky rapists walk free.
While at some level, it’s sad to see two such young men — or (almost) anyone, really — spend time in our awful prison system, prison sentences serve an extremely important purpose. It’s not even about them or their victim as individuals, it’s about the message that is sent. Jll Filipovic has noted that research shows that “cultural opposition to rape myths makes men less likely to commit assault, and acceptance of those myths makes sexual assault more likely.”
I believe that the same thing holds for how rape is treated in our criminal justice system. We have to show that rape is never minimized, excused or tolerated by a decent society, and that rapists must pay for their crimes. Today’s conviction in Ohio has probably prevented countless rapes from occurring, by unambiguously demonstrating the consequences.. A powerful blow against rape culture has been struck.
By: Kathleen Geier, Washington Monthly Political Animal, March, 17, 2013
“Incentivizing Incarceration”: Court Again Strikes Down Florida Attempt To Privatize Prison Health Care
A Florida court has ruled for the second time that the state Department of Corrections improperly circumvented the legislative process to privatize prison health care. Last October, some state legislators had attempted to privatize the state’s prison health care by folding the funding into budget proviso language. That attempt was held unconstitutional by a Florida judge, who said the legislature could only do so through a separate bill. The legislature then proposed a separate bill in February 2012 that, unsurprisingly, could not garner enough votes to pass.
But that failure wouldn’t satisfy legislators bent on outsourcing the state’s prison health care to private corporations. This time, they were able to include in the legislature-reviewed appropriations bill funding for private prisons in one South Florida region. Seeking to also privatize prison health care in three other regions, the Department of Corrections sought additional funding from the state’s Legislative Budget Commission rather than the full legislature. The LBC granted funds for all four regions and increased the budget from 41 million to 58 million — a move also struck down by Leon County Judge Jackie Fulford:
Whether to privatize some or all of the state’s prison operations is a significant policy decision. Under existing law, the legislature weighs in on this policy decision through its appropriations power. Where, as here, there is no specific appropriation for privatizing health services in Regions I, II or III, it cannot be said that such a significant action has been approved or authorized. […]
Authorizing and funding privatizing health care services in Florida’s prisons is the prerogative of the full legislature and not that of the Legislative Budget Commission.
Even at the time of the vote, some members of the Legislative Budget Commission questioned the legality of expanding funding for private prison health care. But the state nonetheless entered into a contract with Corizon Healthcare to serve those three regions, and forged ahead with notices to nearly 2,000 state workers who would be laid off as a result of the move.
Privatization of health care for nearly 100,000 inmates was billed as a way to cut costs, in part because prison officials anticipated the private companies would offer less benefits to their workers. But studies in other states have shown that private prisons actually cost the state more, while enabling “inhumane” conditions and prompting allegations of preventable deaths. Privatization of the prison system has also incentivized private corporations to lobby for policies that incarcerate more Americans. The United States already has the world’s highest incarceration rate.
By: Nicole Flatow, Think Progress, December 7, 2012
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