should we care about prison rape?

The Sandusky story has prompted many discussions about sexual abuse of children and how we handle that. Did Penn State ignore Sandusky's behavior to protect the football program or because the rape of boys wasn't seen as a big deal? Timothy Dalrymple at Patheos asks why we care less about the rape of boys and men.

But I think most of us, if we consult our own experiences and impressions, will agree that our society treats the rape of boys or men much more leniently than it does the rape of girls or women.  During the OJ Simpson trial, I hear that OJ would “go into prison as a tight end and come out as a wide receiver.”  Lots of people — myself included, I confess — laughed at the joke.  Make a joke about raping a woman and you will be rightly excoriated.  Make a joke about a man being raped and it’s all hardy-har.

Don't miss the interesting discussion in the comments. Commenters Kristin and Deoxy said flat out that prison rape isn't something to worry about because, well, it happens to prisoners and they don't count and because somewhere in the world, something worse is happening.


Deoxy says:

I have to agree with Kristen about the “prison rape is different” bit – yes, it’s bad, and I’ll get in line to put significant effort in to solving it right after we solve a whole bunch of other, more serious problems, those which have a MUCH higher probability of not victimizing the scum of the earth (to give only the most obvious example I can think of, a child starving to death is an awful thing – a convicted murderer being raped, while living in relative luxury in most ways compared to most human beings in the world today, simply doesn’t even show up on that scale). 

That kind of thinking is abhorrent. Prison sentences do not include rape. A crime is still a crime, even inside a prison.