Prisoner Sex Abuse: Still Common, Still Wrong

“I said there is no justice as they led me out the door.  He said this isn’t a court of justice, son.  This is a court of law.”  -Billy Bragg, “Rotting on Remand”

Alexandria, Virginia.  1998.  He was a pizza delivery guy, maybe 20 but built emotionally and physically like 16.  His victim was a six year-old Spanish girl who was excited about her pizza, and walked out of her apartment and into the building’s lobby to await it.  When he saw her, barefoot in a light cotton print dress, something disordered and dark in him stirred.  She asked if the pizza was for her family.  He nodded and smiled.  But then he set it down, took her by the hand, and led her down a short set of stairs to the laundry room.  There, against a washing machine, he penetrated her vagina with a finger until she screamed.  He let her go and fled.

APD caught him very quickly.  A hulking, athletic, but kind-faced, easy-going sex crimes detective named Mark Purcell questioned him, and obtained a fair confession.  Mark used no unfair or bullying tactics- the suspect was sick and sad, and confessed without much prodding that he had stuck his finger in the little girl.  He just couldn’t help it.  Mark didn’t ask him why.  He had been around enough to know the answer wasn’t usually satisfying anyway.

The case fell to me and he pleaded guilty.  His family, religiously Muslim and from overseas, was mortified at his behavior and terrified for his future.  Virginia employs sentencing guidelines, and when penetration occurs (as opposed to ‘just’ fondling or touching), they go up from months to years.  He had no criminal record, but his guidelines came out to around nine years.  Nine years in a correctional system that has attracted the attention of human rights groups over the years is no joke, and sex offenders go in at a high level of security.  That means they become part of a population of extremely violent and hardened people.  And then it’s prey or become prey.  In his case the outcome was obvious.

I argued for what the guidelines called for; that was my job.  His attorney argued for less and got less, to the tune of about three years.  The defendant and his family were as quiet as stones as he was led through the rear door of the courtroom and off to a fate that neither me, the judge, nor even his own attorney really knew.  The sentence was lousy by prosecution standards.  Even for a first time offender (as far as we knew), a digital penetration offense against a helpless child barely six years-old was a heinous crime.  I closed my file and left the courtroom.  Another attorney I knew pulled me aside.

“Don’t worry, Rog.  He’ll get his downstate.  Believe me, I’ve seen it.  That guy’ll be worth a pack of smokes before the month is out. I wouldn’t wanna be him.  And he deserves it.”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to be rude.  The attorney was a decent guy who had young kids of his own.  Most people are a lot less charitable than he was to the fate of sex offenders in prison.

But Billy Bragg’s judge was right.

For those who don’t know, Bragg is a British musician with a leftist bent who wasn’t singing about the fate of sex offenders when he wrote that song in the mid 80’s. But the sentiment is valid, even when twisted to my point.  We don’t practice in courts of justice.  We practice in courts of law.  The law is what separates us from the state of nature we’ve fought so hard to rise above as human beings.  The law isn’t God by a long shot, but it’s a gift He gave to a flawed, passionate, vengeful creation- man- whom He knew would need it in its noble blindness and gloriously bland and balanced predictability. The law is a temple to our better nature and a shelter from our coarser side.  It’s an ideal we’ll never reach, but to abrogate it for the sake of what some deem “poetic justice” is simply immoral, not to mention stupendously shortsighted.  Poetic justice is fine- oddly satisfying, actually- when it’s meted out by the weight of circumstances.  But legal justice is that itching sense of vengeance- not always a bad thing- tempered by due process and a set of rules all must obey, despite grief, despite rage, despite righteous indignation.

I’ve surprised many with the stance I’ve taken on this issue over the years, particularly with the brutality I’ve seen defendants dish out to the very least culpable and most defenseless victims imaginable.  But I’ve fought tooth and nail for relatively helpless victims my entire professional life and I’ll do it until I keel over.  I also have no issue with relatively monastic conditions in corrections; I won’t be found fighting for cable and video game consoles for the convicted.  Get them up, get them working, get them wanting very much not to return.  But a clean, safe environment is what we owe those among us we have the audacity to cage after due process- probably the most profound thing we do as a society other than executing capital murderers.  I’ve served efforts under PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) for exactly this reason.  But despite the efforts of PREA since its passage in 2003, the stats regarding sexual abuse in custody, as noted in a new report released late last month, are still harrowing.

A society can be judged in large part by how it treats its most despised and menacing members.  That’s what the law is for- to protect us all, not just the favored or the powerful.  It’s time we followed it beyond the courtroom and through the doors that slam locked behind those of us who violate it, but are no more subject to it than we who hold the keys.

© 2010, Roger Canaff. All rights reserved.