August, 17 2010, 12:14pm EDT
ACLU And Coalition Urges Holder To Adopt Standards Aimed At Eradicating Prison Rape
Groups Say Government Failure To Protect Prisoners From Sexual Violence Is Unacceptable
WASHINGTON
The American Civil Liberties Union and a broad coalition of religious,
political, human rights and civil rights groups today called on U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder to immediately adopt a set of proposed
standards aimed at eradicating sexual assault in the nation's prisons.
The standards, issued over a year ago
by the blue-ribbon, bipartisan National Prison Rape Elimination
Commission (NPREC), would, if adopted by Holder, provide an important
guide for corrections professionals to eliminate sexual abuse in their
facilities and measure the effectiveness of their efforts. The coalition
previously called on Holder to adopt the standards in a letter sent
last week.
"The commission's proposed standards
merely put into words what the Constitution already requires," said Amy
Fettig, staff attorney with the ACLU National Prison Project. "Prison
officials have a constitutional obligation to provide prisoners with
protection against violence and sexual abuse, and Attorney General
Holder should implement the standards without delay."
The proposed standards would also
help hold corrections officials accountable by helping reform-minded
officials indentify their facilities' strengths and weaknesses while
ensuring that those who continue to deny the high incidence of sexual
abuse of prisoners are no longer able to minimize the extent of the
problem.
The proposed standards also include
important provisions which would make it easier for prison rape victims
seeking their day in court to file lawsuits challenging their inhumane
treatment. Since the 1996 passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act
(PLRA), victims are forced to exhaust the internal complaint processes
of their correctional institution before filing a lawsuit - processes
that are often comprised of arbitrary rules that are impossible for
prisoners to navigate.
According to the Bureau of Justice
Statistics, more than 60,000 prisoners - one of every 20 - were sexually
assaulted last year. The problem is even worse in juvenile
institutions, where one in eight juvenile detainees were victims of
sexual assault last year.
"There is a deeply ingrained culture
of acceptance when it comes to prison rape in too many prisons and jails
across the country," said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the
ACLU National Prison Project, who testified before NPREC and served on a
committee of experts that helped develop the standards. "The proposed
standards are a milestone in the long battle to end a shameful era of
rampant violence and abuse within our nation's prisons and there is no
excuse for the Attorney General's delay in adopting them."
The proposed standards were issued by
NPREC after a comprehensive study of the issues surrounding prison
rape, including site visits, public hearings and consultations with
corrections experts, academics, survivors of sexual abuse in detention,
health care providers and others.
According to the coalition's letter,
while many corrections leaders strongly support the proposed standards,
some officials have exaggerated the cost of implementing the basic
measures outlined in the proposed standards. Cash-strapped states like
California and Oregon have already begun to implement the standards
without substantial additional costs. And the cost of failing to address
the problem of prison rape is huge - one state prison system, for
example, recently paid $100 million after more than 10 years of
expensive and protracted litigation, to settle lawsuits filed by women
who were sexually abused by staff at a women's facility.
The ACLU today is also calling on
Congress to pass the Prison Abuse Remedies Act, which would eliminate
barriers created by PLRA for all prisoners seeking protection of their
rights in federal court.
"The Prison Abuse Remedies Act is
currently sitting idle before Congress. Passage of this bill could
protect millions of our nation's prisoners from unnecessary suffering,"
said Jennifer Bellamy, ACLU Legislative Counsel. "This country currently
incarcerates over 2 million Americans in increasingly abusive
conditions. We cannot continue to leave them without recourse. Congress
should pass the Prison Abuse Remedies Act before this legislative
session is up."
Along with the ACLU, the letter sent
to Holder urging adoption of the NPREC standards was signed by a wide
array of organizations from across the political spectrum, including
Prison Fellowship, the American Conservative Union, Focus on the Family,
the Southern Baptist Convention, The Sentencing Project, the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National
Immigrant Justice Center.
A copy of the letter is available online at: www.aclu.org/prisoners-rights/coalition-letter-attorney-general-holder-prison-rape-elimination-act-prea-standards
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Tennessee GOP Shuts Down Debate, Passes Bill Allowing Handguns for Teachers
"Instead of protecting kids," said one Democratic lawmaker, "they've protected guns again."
Apr 24, 2024
A Democratic leader in the Tennessee House on Tuesday warned that a bill pushed through by Republicans to permit teachers to carry concealed handguns was "nothing but a bad disaster and tragedy waiting to happen," after the GOP cut off a debate and refused to include amendments that aimed to add safety measures to the legislation.
House Bill 1202 passed in a 68-28 vote, and Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who has never vetoed legislation, is expected to sign it, clearing the way for the state to require school districts to allow teachers to carry firearms without notifying students' parents.
According toThe Tennessean, the legislation does not allow schools or school districts to opt out of the program and requires administrators "to consider every individual who wants to carry."
The legislation was passed just over a year after a shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville killed six people, including three children.
"Our children's lives are at stake," said House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons (D-55).
After last year's shooting, the Tennessee Legislature garnered national attention when Republicans voted to expel expel state Reps. Justin Jones (D-52) and Justin Pearson (D-86) for joining outraged students in a chant for gun control during a protest. Jones and Pearson were soon reinstated.
Following Tuesday's vote on arming teachers, Republicans voted to bar Jones from speaking in House proceedings for two days after he was accused of committing three rules violations, including recording on the chamber's floor—something a GOP member was also accused of doing.
Jones applauded Tennessee residents for speaking out against H.B. 1202 in the House chamber.
"Despite my Republican colleagues' best effort, the power of the people cannot and will not be stopped," said the lawmaker.
The GOP ended the debate over the legislation after one teacher, Lauren Shipman-Dorrance, cried out from the viewing section. Shipman-Dorrance was removed by state troopers on orders from House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-25).
After the bill passed overwhelmingly—despite four Republicans who joined the Democrats and three who abstained—the remaining protesters chanted, "Blood on your hands!" before the GOP ordered state troopers to remove them.
Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose children attend Covenant Day School, delivered a letter with more than 5,300 signatures to the House on Monday demanding that lawmakers defeat the bill and warning that the legislation "ignores research that shows the presence of a gun increases the risks posed to children."
Shoop Neumann toldThe Tennessean that the bill's passage was "disgraceful."
"We worked with the Senate and representative sponsors of this bill to make it even a little bit safer—anything, really—and I'm utterly disappointed that that was not taken into consideration," she told the outlet.
Kris Brown, president of gun violence prevention group Brady, pointed out that "multiple teachers were armed at [the Covenant School], yet that was not enough to stop six children and school employees from being murdered."
"The Tennessee Legislature has just dishonored all who were killed at the Covenant School shooting last year by choosing to promote the proliferation of firearms in classrooms," said Brown. "H.B. 1202 is especially egregious as it has no safe storage requirements, meaning firearms could potentially fall into a child's hands."
"If we want to be free of this uniquely American crisis, we cannot continue to perpetuate the deadly norms that got us here by adding more unsecured firearms in spaces where children should be safe to learn and grow," she added. "We urge Gov. Lee to veto this bill and ask him to work alongside us, teachers, and gun safety advocates to craft meaningful reforms across the Volunteer State."
Democrats proposed amendments to require that teachers lock up their handguns and only remove them during a security breach, that teachers be held civilly liable for using their guns, and that schools inform parents if guns are on campus, but the GOP rejected all of the proposals.
"I can assure you these people have never experienced an actual working high school classroom or they wouldn't be passing this nonsense," said one Tennessee teacher. "A child will die because of this."
Pearson said the passage of the bill marked "an awful day for Tennessee, our kids, our teachers, and communities."
"Instead of protecting kids," said the lawmaker, "they've protected guns again."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'All States Will Be Impacted' by US Supreme Court's Idaho Abortion Case
"At its core, this Supreme Court decision will reflect who we are becoming as a society."
Apr 24, 2024
Less than a month after a key abortion pill hearing, the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments for another major reproductive rights case—one out of Idaho that could impact healthcare for pregnant women and people across the country.
Idaho is among the over 20 states that have tightened restrictions on abortion since the high court's right-wing majority reversedRoe v. Wade nearly two years ago with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Since August 2022, abortions have been banned in the state except for reported cases of rape or incest or when "necessary to prevent the death" of the pregnant person.
"If the court does not uphold emergency abortion care protections, this ruling will have devastating consequences for pregnant people."
Before Idaho's near-total ban on abortion took effect, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill barred enforcement of it to the extent that it conflicts with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a 1986 federal law requiring emergency departments that accept Medicare to provide "necessary stabilizing treatment" to any patient with an emergency medical condition.
The Biden administration argues that such care includes abortion; Idaho's Republican policymakers—backed by the far-right Christian Alliance Defending Freedom—disagree. The U.S. Supreme Court in January paused Winmill's order and agreed to hear arguments in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States.
As The New York Timesreported Wednesday:
In a lively argument, questions by the justices suggested a divide along ideological lines, as well as a possible split by gender on the court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, appeared skeptical that Idaho's law, which bars doctors from providing abortions unless a woman's life is in danger or in specific nonviable pregnancies, superseded the federal law.
The argument also raised a broader question about whether some of the conservative justices, particularly Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., may be prepared to embrace language of fetal personhood, that is, the notion that a fetus would have the same rights as a pregnant woman.
Also noting Barrett's apparent alignment with the three liberal women on the court, Law Dork's Chris Geidner predicted "it comes down to" Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow right-winger Brett Kavanaugh.
"Already, we see women miscarrying and giving birth to stillborn infants in restrooms and in their cars after hospitals have turned them away, and medical professionals put in impossible positions by extremist lawmakers," said MomsRising executive director and CEO Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, citing Associated Pressreporting from last week.
"Of all the horrors SCOTUS unleashed with its appalling, dangerous, massively unpopular ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the threat that pregnant people—most of whom are moms—will be denied emergency medical care is among the worst," she asserted. "An adverse ruling in this case will mean emergency rooms can deny urgently needed care to people experiencing serious pregnancy complications that can destroy their health, end their fertility, and take their lives."
Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, similarly stressed that under a decision that favors the Idaho GOP, "pregnant people will suffer severe, life-altering health consequences, and even death."
"We're already seeing the devastating impact of this case play out in Idaho, where medical evacuations to transport patients to other states for the care they need have dramatically spiked since the Supreme Court allowed state politicians to block emergency abortion care," she noted.
The has also been an exodus of healthcare providers. Pointing out that those who violate Idaho's ban face five years in prison, The Guardianreported Wednesday that "between 2022, when Roe was overturned, and 2023, about 50 OB-GYNs moved out of the state."
As Republican lawmakers in various states have ramped up attacks on reproductive freedom since Dobbs, states that still allow abortions have seen an influx of "healthcare refugees." A Planned Parenthood spokesperson confirmed in January that about 30% of its abortion patients in Nevada—which borders Idaho—are from other states.
"With several of Nevada's bordering states enforcing abortion bans, pushing many people seeking care to our state, we've seen firsthand the devastation that anti-abortion policies are already wreaking,"
Reproductive Freedom for All director of Nevada campaigns Denise Lopez said Tuesday. "The Supreme Court must not allow us to spiral further into this healthcare crisis."
If the high court rules in favor of Idaho's Republican lawmakers, she warned, "all states will be impacted, even in places like Nevada with more than 4 in 5 voters supporting reproductive freedom."
Destiny Lopez, acting co-CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, declared that "at its core, this Supreme Court decision will reflect who we are becoming as a society: Are we okay with requiring pregnant individuals who face severe complications to suffer life-threatening health consequences rather than granting them access to abortion? Are we okay with forcing doctors to choose between violating federal law by not providing emergency abortion care or violating state law if they do?"
"If the court does not uphold emergency abortion care protections, this ruling will have devastating consequences for pregnant people—particularly Black and Brown folks, immigrants, people with lower incomes, those without health insurance, and LGBTQ+ communities—while further emboldening extremists," she emphasized.
Arguments in the case have sparked multiple demonstrations, from a weekend rally in Boise, Idaho to a Wednesday gathering outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., where Women's March organized a die-in to highlight the potential consequences of the forthcoming ruling.
"It's a horrifying time to be someone who needs critical abortion care in America right now," said Women's March executive director Rachel O'Leary Carmona. "The GOP is chipping away at women's bodily autonomy and livelihoods one illegitimate court case at a time—from fast-tracking a case on the authorization of a medication that's been safely administered for decades last month, to now bringing the fate of emergency abortion care to a Supreme Court captured by their radical, anti-choice agenda."
"We know what these cases really are: They're part of a series of efforts by Christian nationalist politicians to do anything they can to control women's bodies and cut back women's decisions about their healthcare, their family planning, and their lives," she added.
Similar warnings about far-right Christian nationalist attacks on a range of rights have dominated political contests this cycle—including the race for the White House. In November, Democratic President Joe Biden, who supports access to abortion care, is set to face former Republican President Donald Trump, who brags about appointing three of the six justices who reversed Roe.
The case has renewed arguments for considering changes to the country's top court, which over the past few years has not only seen plummeting levels of public trust but also been rocked by repeated ethics scandals.
"Idaho's abortion ban is a direct consequence of the court's radical decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow partisan state legislatures to determine Americans' access to abortion care," said Stand Up America managing director of policy and political affairs Brett Edkins. "If the Supreme Court once again sides with anti-abortion extremists, it will be further proof that this court is radically out of touch with the American people and must be reformed."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Biden Signs TikTok Ban—Among the 'Stupidest and Most Authoritarian' Tech Bills
One critic said that "the bill doesn't touch the homegrown spyware U.S. companies churn out" and "also strikes at the First Amendment right to receive information."
Apr 24, 2024
Digital rights defenders on Wednesday slammed the passage of a U.S. foreign aid package containing a possible nationwide TikTok ban as unconstitutional, xenophobic, and ill-advised during an election year in which President Joe Biden desperately needs as many young votes as possible.
Biden signed the $95 billion bill late Wednesday morning after senators voted 79-18 the previous evening to approve the package, which includes tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel—which is waging a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
One of the bill's provisions would force ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, to sell the app to a non-Chinese company within a year or face a federal ban. Approximately 170 million Americans use TikTok, which is especially popular among members of Gen-Z and small-to-medium-sized businesses, and contributes tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy annually.
"Whether it's dressed up as a ban or a forced sale, the bill targeting TikTok is one of the stupidest and most authoritarian pieces of tech legislation we've seen in years," Fight for the Future director Evan Greer said in a statement.
Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, called the provision "nothing more than an unconstitutional ban in disguise."
"Banning a social media platform that hundreds of millions of Americans use to express themselves would have devastating consequences for all of our First Amendment rights, and will almost certainly be struck down in court," she added.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said:
The First Amendment means that the government can't restrict Americans' access to ideas, information, or media from abroad without a very good reason for it—and no such reason exists here. Repackaging the government's reasons for the ban in the language of "national security" does not change the analysis. There's no national security exception to the First Amendment, and creating such an exception would make the First Amendment a dead letter.
Proponents of the possible ban attempted to spin it as something else and pointed to precedents including the 2020 forced sale of the popular LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr, formerly owned by a Chinese company.
"I want to be very clear: This is not a 'TikTok ban,'" Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who voted to approve the bill, said in a statement. "I have no interest in banning TikTok. This bill will simply make TikTok safer by separating it from the Chinese Communist Party so that the data of 170 million Americans—many of whom are children—is protected."
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said before Tuesday's vote that "Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our U.S. government personnel."
"Banning TikTok without passing real tech regulation will just further entrench monopolies like Meta and Google, without doing anything to protect Americans from data harvesting or government propaganda."
However, Kate Ruane, who directs the Center for Democracy & Technology's Free Expression Project, asserted that "Congress shouldn't be in the business of banning platforms. They should be working to enact comprehensive privacy legislation that protects our private data no matter where we choose to engage online."
Greer said that "not only is this bill laughably unconstitutional and a blatant assault on free expression and human rights, it's also a perfect way to derail momentum toward more meaningful policies like privacy and antitrust legislation that would actually address the harms of Big Tech and surveillance capitalism."
Greer continued:
Banning TikTok without passing real tech regulation will just further entrench monopolies like Meta and Google, without doing anything to protect Americans from data harvesting or government propaganda.
We could be months away from another Trump administration, and top Democrats are busy expanding mass surveillance authority and setting the precedent that the government can ban an entire social media app based on vague 'national security' concerns that haven't been explained to the public.
Some critics questioned the wisdom of Biden signing off on a potential ban of the most popular social media app among many young users during an election year in which many younger voters are disappointed in the president's record on climate, student debt relief, the Gaza genocide, and more.
One user of X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, said earlier this year that signing the bill would demonstrate a "comical level of political malpractice, the equivalent of seeing the rake on the ground and purposefully stepping on it."
Moments after Biden signed the bill, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew
vowed, "We aren't going anywhere."
"The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again," he said, referring to the three times when federal judges blocked efforts to ban TikTok.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew responds to the bill that could ban the app: “Make no mistake, this is a ban, a ban of TikTok and a ban on you and your voice.”
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere.”
pic.twitter.com/qElI8JvY0D
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) April 24, 2024
In the most recent case, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled last December that a Montana law that would have banned the app "violates the Constitution in more ways than one" and had a "pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment."
It is unclear who would buy TikTok. Analysts estimate the platform is worth upward of $100 billion, placing it out of reach for all but the biggest U.S. tech titans and, ironically, setting up possible antitrust challenges from the very administration that ultimately forced the sale.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular