Comments Elsewhere

“. . . In the mother’s day 2013 issue, Dawn describes how little the PREA [federal Prison Rape Elimination Act] has helped women prisoners. In fact, she says ‘the only people who suffer because of PREA are the same ones who were supposed to benefit from it.’ According to Dawn, what ‘zero tolerance’ has actually meant is that women are forbidden any physical contact. She was once admonished for giving another prisoner a high five. A few abusive guards were removed and charged with crimes since PREA passed. But the Department of Corrections (DOC) also implemented their own new rule. The new rule makes it a serious infraction for a prisoner to falsely report to authorities. Dawn says that, since they added the new rule, many women won’t make reports because “‘. . . history has proven that any kind of reports true or false are found to be false. When it was found to be false the people were immediately found guilty and sent to administrative segregation (ad. seg.). One lady was only having a conversation with an officer, not ‘reporting’ anything, just telling him a rumor she’d heard about a guard putting money on an offenders account for ‘favors’. This officer went and reported their conversation and she was cuffed, taken to the hole and subsequently written up for Class 1 False Reporting and placed in Ad. Seg.’ “Does it sound to you like a few new policies are going to make a difference when people still accept the mass dehumanization and incarceration that creates such an ideal environment for abuse without consequences? . . .” -Melanie S. Pinkert