Among the accomplishments cited in the State Department's report to the United Nations on the U.S. human-rights record are the U.S. efforts to combat prison rape:
We have also taken action to prevent assaults on the dignity of prisoners that may come from other prisoners. The independent National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, established by Congress under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, was charged with studying the impact of sexual assault in correction and detention facilities and developing national standards for the detection, prevention, reduction, and punishment of prison rape. In 2009, the Commission released its report which detailed progress made in improving the safety and security in these facilities as well as areas still in need of reform. The United States is working to address these issues. The Department of Justice is in the process of developing comprehensive regulations to effectively reduce rape in our nation's prisons.
Absent from that paragraph is an acknowledgment that the Department of Justice has yet to put forth a set of guidelines based on the commission's 2009 report, which were supposed to be released in June. The Department of Justice's ongoing failure to release these guidelines has led to a rare point of convergence between liberals and conservatives, both of whom see the high number of prisoners sexually assaulted each year -- around 60,000 -- as completely unacceptable. I actually think that number might be low -- it's possible that respondents didn't want to report rapes committed because they feared possible retaliation, either from guards or other inmates.
Notably, the report touts a number of accomplishments from this administration -- including the Lily Ledbetter Act, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Affordable Care Act, and yes -- even the stimulus. A notable absence perhaps, is the administration's use of military tribunals to try Omar Khadr for allegedly killing a U.S. soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002, which, according to human-rights groups, makes him the first person tried for crimes committed as a child soldier since World War II.
There was this modest acknowledgment, however, of room for improvement: "Although we have made great strides, work remains to meet our goal of ensuring equality before the law for all."
