Here's an article on it that dispels some of the myths. - and, yes, it says something about a people. I find 'jokes' about prison rape distasteful. they reflect, imo, an attitude that it's okay, and it reflects an attitude of a culture of rape within broader society. rape of anyone in prison, regardless of their crime, should not be tolerated or considered reason for jest, but agreed that when some guy goes in for smoking a joint or some petty offense, then they leave prison as a victom of violence... just shouldn't be. and it really doesn't have to happen, which is part of what this article gets to:
The Way to Stop Prison Rape
By David Kaiser, Lovisa Stannow
As three recent studies by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) show, prisoners are raped with terrible frequency in the United States.[1] We still don't know exactly how many people are sexually abused behind bars every year, but we do know that the number is much larger than 100,000. And we know that those responsible for this abuse are usually not other inmates, but members of the very corrections staff charged with protecting the people in their custody.
The BJS, which is part of the Department of Justice, found statistically significant variation in the incidence of sexual abuse at the hundreds of different facilities it surveyed. Its study of adult prisons, for example, found that 4.5 percent of prisoners nationwide had been sexually abused at their current facilities in the preceding year; but at seven prisons the rate was above 10 percent. Texas's Estelle Unit had a rate of 15.7 percent, while in six prisons no inmates reported such abuse.
One of the most pernicious myths about prisoner rape is that it is an inevitable part of life behind bars. This is simply wrong. As the variance in the BJS findings shows, it can be prevented. In well-run facilities across the country it is being prevented—and this shouldn't be surprising. After all, the government has extraordinary control over the lives of those it locks up. Stopping sexual abuse in detention is a matter of using sound policies and practices, and passing laws that require them.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA), which charged the BJS with undertaking its surveys, also created a body called the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, whose mandate was to study the problem more qualitatively and devise national standards for its detection, prevention, and response. Doing so proved to be a slow process. The commissioners convened expert committees, made an exhaustive review of available research, held numerous site visits and public hearings, and submitted draft versions of the standards for public comment. At every step they consulted corrections leaders, survivors of sexual assault in detention, researchers, advocates on behalf of prisoners, academics, legal experts, and health care providers. Finally, on June 23, 2009, six years after the passage of PREA, the commission published its recommendations. (Staff and board members from our organization, Just Detention International (JDI), the only US NGO dedicated solely to ending sexual abuse in detention, served on all eight of the expert committees appointed by the commission.)
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