Eric Holder and the Justice Department still haven’t submitted federal guidelines for the prevention of sexual abuse in prison. At National Review, Eli Lehrer has a really good summary of the dynamics:
But corrections professionals have asked for revisions on the basis of expense (yes, the standards will cost money to implement) and the theoretical difficulty of implementing them in every detail (although well-run prisons use them already). But these objections are, at least sometimes, a cover for deeper problems. Particularly in the most chaotic prisons, turning a blind eye towards sexual abuse helps keep tensions between racial-supremacist gangs under control. In juvenile facilities, furthermore, a growing body of evidence of guards abusing their charges has some guards and administrators rightly nervous that tougher standards will reveal deeper problems. Finally, society’s refusal to take sexual abuse in detention seriously, combined with the utterly distasteful nature of the problem, makes it something that many would prefer to sweep under the rug. The slow pace of the process so far — for example, even though nobody openly opposes the idea of standards, getting Congress to approve exceedingly modest legislation took almost two years of work — shows that many would prefer that it remain sub rosa.
The fact that the administration is still falling behind on this is a disgrace. It’s also a much better place for conservatives to focus their criticisms of corrections policy than defending the outdated, draconian policy of segregating HIV positive prisoners.
