The Prison Rape elimination Act is a federal law focused on sexual assault and victimization in prisons, jails, juvenile facilities and detention centers. The Prison Rape Elimination Act was passed in 2003 and the final standards were made effective I 2012. 13% of the 21 million inmates have been sexually assaulted. The sexual assaults have caused several other problems for inmates including victim traumatization, the spread of disease, and increased recidivism. Sexual abuse also violates the inmates eight and fourteenth amendment, rights to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The federal government has to abide by PREA regulations regardless; the state however enforces PREA through a grant. If the state does not comply with PREA
The Duke lacrosse case implicated criminal actions of: first degree rape, first degree sex offenses’ and kidnapping charges against three Duke University lacrosse players; Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligman and Dean Evans (North Carolina State Bar v. Nifong, 2007,p.18-20). According to Mosteller (2007) the case started with “gang rape allegations” by Crystal Mangum, a black exotic dancer who was also a student at North Carolina Central University on the morning of March 14th, 2006 (p.1337). The alleged rape occurred during the Duke lacrosse teams’ party at 610 North Buchanan Blvd (North Carolina State Bar v. Nifong, 2007,p.1). Suspiciously Mangum could not make any identifications of her attackers even after viewing most Duke lacrosse team members including the names mentioned above and the lacrosse team members who actually lived at 610 North Buchanan Blvd (Mosteller, 2007, p.1407). Mosteller (2007) also mentions that Mike Nifong had to know that
Policy Analysis: Megan’s Law Sexual violence, particularly against children, is a significant issue all around the world. In the early 1990’s in the United States, there were multiple well-publicized cases of sexual violence against children. From kidnappings, to rapes, and everything in between, violence was being committed against children and something needed to be done about it. In 1996, Megan’s Law was passed in response to the sexual assault and death of Megan Kanka, a seven-year-old from New Jersey (Corrigan, 2006).
The same year Hendricks was facing release Kansas enacted legislation to address the civil commitment of individuals known to be sexual predators. The result was the Sexually Violent Predator Act, Kan. Stat. Ann. § 59-29a01 et seq. (1994), known as K.S.A. 59-2901 et seq.
According to the research of Kimberly Lonsway and police sergeant Joanne Archambault, when an individual is raped in the United States, 96% of the time the rapist dodges the crime. The majority of these rapes do not go through the prosecution process and when they do, less than 0.2% of these perpetrators spend time in a prison cell (Krakauer 121). The main cause of this ongoing problem is the ineffective and unfair representation of rape victims by the justice system. Jon Krakauer argues this point in his novel, Missoula: Rape in a College Town and the Justice System, using narratives as his main focus of support. Through this use of narratives, Krakauer appeals to logos, encapturing the various actions and perspectives of those who played
“The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984” The article, “The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984” (2015), written by Eric Girault, persuades the audience that the enactment of the law did not reduce crime in societies, but was misappropriated, which caused a negative impact on families and their communities. Girault describes this by sharing his personal anecdote on receiving a harsh prison sentence for a non-violent crime as a first time offender. He uses trustworthy resources in order to substantiate his claim. Girault’s intended audience for this piece of writing is the general public, specifically those that lack knowledge of the law and its due process.
Chapter Eight of the book Flawed Criminal Justice Policies, authors take the closer look at the laws and faulty policy regarding the sex offenders. According to the book policy makers started the myriad laws to protect the public from the sex offenders with increased prison sentences, and restricting the residences to the violators. Today we have very similar situation when it comes to treatment of sexual offenders. The process starts with the sex offender being committed to the prison sentence, and lastly to being registered as a sex offender on many public websites, so that the people could distinguish who the sex offender is and where he/she lives. In this chapter we can learn about a lot of different statues that were made to protect people from the sex offenders.
In the book, Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in College Town, by Jon Krakauer, the reader delves into how rape and sexual assault are treated in the town of Missoula, and the University of Montana. As the reader, we are informed on how the university, the police department, the district attorney’s office, and the community reacted to these rape and sexual assault allegations. We see how the criminal justice system has failed the victims, and are forced to live with what happened to them, while their assailants are free of any burden. The law is set in place to protect people from victimization, but when the men, in this book, are not legally held accountable, then any woman, or man, is more susceptible to victimization. It is interesting
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town is a in-depth look at the issue of sexual assault on college campuses as told through the stories of students at the University of Montana in Missoula. Through the narratives, author Jon Krakauer ties in statistics and information creating an effective work that stands as emotionally compelling while remaining grounded and applying these stories to the greater problem of sexual assault. It tackles one of the biggest problems surrounding sexual assault in general, the treatment of the accused compared with the treatment of the accuser. Though Missoula focuses on the victims, it does provide much of the necessary background and possible motivations for the assaulters. These insights contribute
In the scenario, a community corrections officer subdues an unruly offender who is in custody by spraying mace on the offender, and it also affects another alleged violator in an adjoining area. The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution states that there should not be any cruel or unusual punishments inflicted (U.S. Const. amend. VIII). Based on the facts in the scenario, I do not believe that the offender in custody or the alleged probation violator waiting had their Constitutional rights violated.
The Steubenville High School Rape case, is one of the high profile criminal cases within the last two years. The case occurred in Steubenville, Ohio on August 11,2012. When a sixteen year old girl was intoxicated and raped. She was publicized through social media of a video and sexually assaulted by two of her peers at a party. With an underage drinking party at Matt Belerdine’s house.
The article explains how sexual assault continues to be a problem until this very day. When someone is sexually assaulted, it is very hard for them to cope with the fact that someone has touched them in the wrong way. For the ones who commits the assault, it will only become worse for them. A National Study says, “The main source of inmates’ knowledge of prison sex appears to come from their conversations with other inmates”(Response to the Prison Rape Elimination Act). Some inmates could portray the role of acting as if they are there for the victim to talk to, but there are other things that could result from this.
In this scenario there are a lot of prisoner getting raped. Although, they are prisoners they still have some constitutional rights that apply to them as a prisoner. Their still entitled to be protected by the correctional officers at all times and if something happens to them the officer that is on duty at that time could face charges for violating their constitutionals rights. Therefore, if a prisoner is being raped on a regular basis and there is nothing being done about it then this is a violation of their Eighth Amendment right of cruel and unusual punishment because the officers knew about the rapes and done nothing to stop them. I feel that the ethical issue involved in this scenario is that the prisoners are being raped and the
In 1826, the first mention of prison rape in the history of the republic, Rev. Louis Dwight wrote that “Boys are Prostituted to the Lust of old Convicts” throughout the institutions he surveyed from Massachusetts to Georgia. Dwight, the founder of the Prison Discipline Society of Boston, a prison reform group, wrote that “Nature and humanity cry aloud for redemption from this dreadful degradation.” It was not until the 21st century that the nation saw its first anti-prison-rape legislation. Last year, congress passed the Prison Rape Reduction Act, which allocates $60 million to support rape-prevention programs run by federal, state, and local corrections staff and to aid investigations and punishment of perpetrators. The bill, which enjoyed
In society and college campuses, sexual assault occurs quite frequently. According to an estimation one third of women experience a forced sexual experience at least once in their life and most of the time it occurs in colleges. Men have also been reported to be victim of sexual assaults mostly by other men. Most of the time the sexual assault is planned and perpetrated by a third person, who is known to the victim of incident. Drug and alcohol use play role in this issue and contribute to the problem as most of the time the victim and perpetrators are under the effect of alcohol or any other drug during the incident.