“This is something that I think needs to be done, not tomorrow, but yesterday.”
Those were the words of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in March to a House subcommittee on the subject of preventing sexual abuse in prison,” says an editorial in the Washington Post.
Five months have passed since making that statement, and two have passed since the June 23 deadline for Mr. Holder to approve the guidelines set forth by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission.
“His ‘yesterday’ is long past.”
The editorial is in response to a new report released last week by the Bureau of Justice Statistics that found that the situation is worse than expected. Earlier numbers put the incidence of prison rape at 60,500. The new estimates reveal that at least 88,500 adults were sexually abused in U.S. prisons and jails in the past year, or 300 every day.
The Justice Department insists it needs time to do this right. But after a point, says the editorial, additional time results in only additional harm. The congressionally mandated National Prison Rape Elimination Commission spent multiple years looking into this issue, listening to expert testimony, examining best practices and producing a limited array of common-sense recommendations.
It is difficult to understand why none of these recommendations are in place, according to the editorial.
To read the article, click here.
For more information on prison rape, visit Justice Fellowship’s resource page.
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