CA - Why Are So Many Sex Offenders Getting Murdered in California's Prisons?

Original Article

02/18/2015

By Seth Ferranti

In prison, there is no creature lower than a sex offender. Even snitches get a pass before these guys. SOs, chomos, pedophiles—the nicknames all mean the same thing, and they help average convicts differentiate themselves from those they like to believe are the real monsters.
- The nicknames do NOT all mean the same thing!

A recent report from the Associated Press suggests inmates in the California state prison system are getting killed at twice the national average, with sex offenders disproportionately likely to meet their demise inside—which is awful, but not too surprising given how much hatred is directed at those inmates. But why would one state stand out so much from the rest?

"That's the culture in California prison," Kilo, a Blood doing life in California under the three strikes law, tells me. "It's taboo and pretty much all the races make an issue out of it, as far as dealing with child molesters and stuff like that. But the Hispanics and the whites—they really make a big issue out of it, as far as stabbing them and getting them out of the prison population."

Read the entire article

See Also:

• AP Exclusive: Many sex offenders killed in California prison
• Experts: Reducing Prison Populations Best Way To Keep Sex Offenders Safe Behind Bars

CANADA - Convicted sex offender sues for brutal jailhouse attack at Calgary Correctional Centre

Original Article

02/05/2014

By KEVIN MARTIN

Staff at the Calgary Correctional Centre failed to adequately protect a convicted sex offender who was swarmed by fellow inmates, a $300,000 lawsuit claims.

_____ was serving a nine-month sentence at the Calgary jail in June, 2012 when he says he was attacked.

His claim alleges those in charge of the institution didn’t ensure his safety while he served his time.

“They failed to intervene and protect _____ when the assault took place,” his lawsuit, which lists the jail’s director among the defendants, says.

“They failed to sufficiently supervise the serving prisoners at the CCC, such that an assault against a fellow prisoner would not have taken place,” his statement of claim alleges.

“They knew, or ought to have known, that as a serving prisoner he would likely suffer an assault at the hands of fellow prisoners, yet took no pro-active steps to ensure _____’s safety, or to isolate them from him.”

_____ was jumped by a group of four other prisoners on June 23, 2012, his claim states.

Court records show he was handed a nine-month jail term plus 18 months probation 22 days earlier in Edmonton, on a charge of sexual touching.

His lawsuit says _____, 50, suffered multiple injuries in the attack, in which he was struck several times in the head, chest and back area.

At one point during the assault he was held down by some of his assailants while others punched him, it says.

Because of his wounds _____ has been unable to work and now lives on Canada Pension Plan disability benefits, the claim says.

Statements of defence disputing the unproven allegations haven’t been filed.

OR - Third sex offender death in Oregon state prison probed

Original Article

02/05/2014

Oregon State Police are investigating the third death of a sex offender in as many months inside the state prison in Umatilla.

The Oregon Department of Corrections said a 31-year-old inmate at the Two Rivers Correctional Institution was found shortly before midnight Tuesday night and pronounced dead just after noon Wednesday at an area hospital.

No other information was released.

_____, 31, was serving a sentence for four counts of rape, two counts of sex abuse and one count of child sex for cases in Clackamas and Washington counties. His sentence began in June 2010 and his earliest possible release date was March 2015.

"As with all unanticipated deaths of state prison inmates, the Oregon State Police Criminal Investigation Division is conducting an investigation," said a news release from the Department of Corrections.

The prison houses 1,800 medium and minimum security male inmates. It opened in 2000.

Last month, a 39-year-old inmate was found unconscious in his Umatilla prison cell.

_____ was pronounced dead at a hospital almost an hour after he was found. He was serving time for sex abuse and sodomy convictions and had been in prison since July 2005.

In early December, a 67-year-old man serving time on marijuana and sodomy convictions died after he was found unconscious in his cell.

Prison staff found _____ alone in his cell at the Two Rivers Correctional Institution about 10 p.m. He had been in state custody since April 2010.

DOC officials did not release a cause of death in any of the cases.

See Also:

• Sex offender safety in question after deaths at Oregon prison

OR - Bill proposes life sentences for certain sex offenders

Peter Courtney

Original Article

02/02/2014

By Hannah Hoffman

Some sex offenders could be subject to mandatory life sentences without parole — a sentence currently reserved exclusively for murderers — under a bill introduced by Senate President Peter Courtney.

Senate Bill 1517 wasn’t the product of lobbying by law enforcement, parent groups or the Department of Corrections, Courtney said. It was his idea and bubbled up from an experience he had years ago, serving on former Gov. Barbara Roberts’ task force on child sex abuse.

“It messed me up for a while,” he said. “I learned a lot of lessons from that. There are sex offenders, and then there are predatory sex offenders ... I’m not convinced you can cure what’s going on inside them. I think they’re very, very dangerous.”

The bill applies only to three crimes: first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy and first-degree sexual penetration, and it targets only those predatory offenders that meet four specific criteria. A jury or judge would have to find that a defendant:

• Was at least 18 years old at the time of the crime;
• Scored “high risk” on a sex offender risk assessment;
• Exhibits a tendency to injure others or target children under 12;
• Presents a serious danger to the public.

The district attorney bringing the charges also would have to find that a defendant meets these criteria before recommendnig this sentence to a jury or judge.

The element of risk plays heavily into the bill.

It is designed to send predatory sex offenders to prison for life before they can hurt more children, Courtney said. Oregon law currently carries harsher punishments for people who have committed multiple crimes.

This bill would allow a life sentence for a first-time offender who appears highly likely to abuse children again.

Craig Prins, executive director of the state’s Criminal Justice Commission, said the sex offender risk assessment that would be used to determine that level of risk is called the “STATIC-99R”, which was created in Canada.

It was designed using a statistical analysis of sex offenders. Researchers mathematically evaluated various criteria to determine how strongly they impact a sex offender’s likelihood of committing another sex crime.

For example, sex offenders who had at least one male victim were statistically more likely to sexually abuse another child, so a male victim will yield a higher score than solely female victims.

“It’s not theory, it’s just math,” he said.
- It's Voodoo and/or Minority Report.

Many sex offenders have a low probability of committing their crimes again, Prins said. “Sex offender” includes everything from a 19-year-old who had sex with a 15-year-old to the most heinous crimes. It’s a broad category, he said, and not every offender is the same.

The risk assessment used in Courtney’s bill uses statistics to weed out the “predatory” offenders — the ones most likely to commit the worst crimes again.
- Well that is the intention, but if history is a lesson, they will just start locking up many who are not a threat, to life in prison, but only time will tell.

“This is a very specific kind of offender, and they’re trying to have a very informed approach to that sentencing,” Prins said.

Courtney said he has yet to find another state with a law that deals so harshly with these crimes, and Prins didn’t know of one either. Oregon does allow a life sentence for some repeat sex offenders, but it isn’t mandatory, and it doesn’t apply to first-time offenders.

Courtney said he doesn’t know if the bill will get a hearing, let alone pass. However, he said it’s an important conversation to have and he believes in his idea.

“I’m not saying other crimes aren’t horrible,” he said. But “it’s very important that we don’t take the chance that they do it again.”

AUSTRALIA - LNP Government in push for indefinite jail time for sexual crimes

Jarrod Bleijie

Original Article

Isn't the government suppose to prove someone is dangerous instead of a person trying to prove they are not?

01/26/2014

Every sex offender in the state faces being indefinitely held in jail unless they can convince psychiatrists they are unlikely to reoffend.

From serial rapists to perverts who like to film up girls' skirts - hundreds more predators are in the firing line as the State Government moves to overhaul sex offender laws.

Advisers informing the State Government's review of sex offenders laws want to widen the Dangerous Prisoners Sexual Offender (DPSO) Act to not only make it even tougher for the courts to release predators but also to include other sexual offenders.

Asked about their advice, Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said he was "open to any ideas" and was consulting with relevant stakeholders.

"The brief is simple. We want to make these laws as tough as possible to ensure the worst of the worst stay behind bars," Mr Bleijie said.

"We are consulting with a range of relevant bodies, including the legal fraternity and child protection groups."

Looming reforms have, in part, been sparked by serial rapist _____, who successfully argued he should be released from his indefinite jail sentence.

Lawyers have already informed Mr Bleijie of shortcomings in the DPSO Act and the potential for it to be widened to include all sex offenders.

There are 96 offenders under the DPSO orders, which can attract an indefinite jail sentence, GPS tracking and tough community restrictions.

Unless an offender has committed a significantly violent offence, they cannot be dealt with as a DPSO.

It means even if a psychiatrist believes the predator will reoffend or escalate offending - such as a pervert who experts believe will eventually rape - they cannot be captured under the laws and they are released on parole.

And, those who try to meet children for sex online but are unknowingly trapped by an undercover police officer are also not to be captured under the DPSO legislation, even if doctors believe the offender will try to have sex with a child.

Bravehearts executive director Hetty Johnston said she first wanted the DPSO act tightened, and then widened to potentially capture the hundreds of other offenders.

She said she had advised Mr Bleijie that a sex offender should only be released into the community if three psychologists all agreed the offender was a low-risk of reoffending.
- Even if this is done, if one of them re-offends, then in the typical knee-jerk fashion, they will react again to further strengthen the laws.

"What we want is the legislation strengthened. This is not vigilantism," she said.

APA Opposes Civil Commitment of Sex Offenders After Prison

Original Article

This article has no date on it, but based on the URL it would appear this is from 08/21/1998.

APA's Board of Trustees approved a task force report on sexually dangerous offenders at its meeting last month in San Diego recommending that psychiatrists vigorously oppose sexual predator laws.

Opposing such laws is necessary "to preserve the moral authority of the profession and ensure continuing societal confidence in the medical model of civil commitment," states the report.

The report was written by the Task Force on Sexually Dangerous Offenders, a component of APA's Council on Psychiatry and Law, which endorsed the report before it went to the Board for action.

Paul Appelbaum, M.D., was chair of the council when the five-member task force was formed five years ago. Its creation, he noted, was in response to several states' adopting sexual predator laws allowing sex offenders postincarceration to be civilly committed to psychiatric facilities.

"We were concerned that psychiatry was being used to preventively detain a class of people for whom confinement rather than treatment was the real goal. This struck many people as a misuse of psychiatry."

The task force agreed, stating in its report that the diagnosis of sexual predator is based on "a vague and circular determination that an offender has a 'mental abnormality' that has led to repeat criminal behavior. Thus, these statutes have the effect of defining mental illness in terms of criminal behavior. This is a misuse of psychiatry, because legislators have used psychiatric commitment to effect nonmedical societal ends."

The task force recommends that societal concerns about protection from dangerous sex offenders be met instead through customary sentencing alternatives within the criminal justice system.

Appelbaum observed that since the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year in the case Kansas v. Hendricks upholding the constitutionality of the Kansas sexual predator law, several states have introduced or passed similar laws.

The purpose of the task force was to assemble information necessary to inform decision making by psychiatrists, legislators, and judges regarding the clinical and ethical implications of sexual predator statutes. The report synthesizes available literature on the diagnoses, treatment, and recidivism of sex offenders, and sexual predator commitment laws including relevant court cases. There is also a section on juvenile sex offenders, frequently asked questions, and a summary of conclusions and policy recommendations.

Appelbaum commented, "The task force report serves as a resource for psychiatrists who want to learn more about sexual disorders and developing treatments and underscores the need for training in psychiatric research programs."

The report notes that except for a few dedicated researchers and clinicians, most psychiatrists are unfamiliar with the assessment and treatment of sex offenders.

The task force report also presents key findings and recommendations in the following areas:

Diagnosis and Treatment

• A significant number of people have paraphilias but only a small percentage receive treatment in either correctional institutions or community settings.
• The treatment approach that is most likely to have an effect on recidivism is multimodal, that is, combining pharmacological, cognitive, and behavioral treatments and relapse prevention.
• There should be an increased investment in research on paraphilic disorders and in the clinical training of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals regarding assessment and treatment of persons with those disorders.

Treatment Within the Criminal Justice System

• Legislatures and correctional agencies should provide therapeutic opportunities for dangerous sex offenders to reduce the rate of recidivism and establish funded programs based on current clinical knowledge.
• Sex offenders should be able to participate in treatment programs while serving criminal sentences regardless of whether such participation has any bearing on the nature and length of their sentences. Participation should not be mandatory.
• Legislatures interested in developing incentives to encourage sex offenders with paraphilic disorders to participate in treatment should consider special indeterminate sentencing arrangements. Participation should be voluntary and limited to offenders who are clinically suitable.

Chemical Castration Laws

• These laws, which predicate release from prison on chemical castration by surgery or antiandrogenic agents for broad classes of sex offenders, are objectionable because they are not based on adequate diagnostic and treatment considerations. They also improperly link medical treatment with punishment and social control.

The Task Force Report on Sexually Dangerous Offenders was written by task force members Howard Zonana, M.D. (chair), Gene Abel, M.D., John Bradford, M.D., Steven K. Hoge, M.D., and Jeffrey Metzer, M.D. Serving as consultants were Judith Becker, Ph.D., Richard Bonnie, LL.B., and Lawrence Fitch, J.D. The report will be published by the American Psychiatric Press Inc. for release next spring.

Women in Solitary Confinement: Sent to Solitary for Reporting Sexual Assault

Original Article

12/12/2013

By Victoria Law

It seems absurd that a person who has been sexually assaulted would be punished for speaking up, especially since prison policy prohibits sexual contact between staff and the people whom they guard. Yet, in many women’s prisons, those who report rape and other forms of sexual assault by prison personnel are often sent to solitary confinement.

After enduring over a year of repeated sexual assaults by a guard, Stacy Barker became one of 31 women incarcerated in Michigan who filed Nunn v MDOC, a 1996 lawsuit against the Department of Corrections for the widespread sexual abuse by prison guards. The following year, Barker was repeatedly sexually assaulted by an officer, who was also a defendant in Nunn. After a month of silence, she reported the assaults to a prison psychiatrist. Barker was immediately placed in segregation and then transferred to Huron Valley Center, which was then a psychiatric hospital for prisoners. There, she reported that hospital attendants verbally harassed her.

In October 1997, Barker attempted suicide. Barker did not receive counseling or psychiatric evaluation. Instead, three male guards stripped her naked, placed her in five-point restraints (a procedure in which a prisoner is placed on her back in a spread-eagle position with her hands, feet and chest secured by straps) on a bed with no blanket for nine hours. She was then placed on suicide watch. She reported that one of the staff who monitored her repeatedly told her he would “bring her down a few rungs.”

Placing women in solitary confinement for reporting staff sexual harassment or abuse is far from rare. In 1996, Human Rights Watch found that, in Michigan, incarcerated women who report staff sexual misconduct are placed in segregation pending the institution’s investigation of their cases. The placement is allegedly for the woman’s own protection. The five other states investigated also had similar practices of placing women in segregation after they reported abuse.

Not much has changed in the thirteen years since Human Rights Watch chronicled the pervasive and persistent sexual abuse and use of retaliatory segregation in eleven women’s prisons. Former staff (PDF) at Ohio’s Reformatory for Women have stated that women who reported sexual abuse are subjected to lengthy periods of time in solitary confinement where cells often had feces and blood smeared on the wall. In Kentucky, a woman who saved evidence from her sexual assault was placed in segregation for fifty days. In Illinois, a prison administrator threatened to add a year onto the sentence of a woman who attempted to report repeated sexual assaults. She was then placed in solitary confinement.

In 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) became law, ostensibly to address the widespread sexual abuse in the nation’s jails and prisons. Among its recommendations was “the timely and comprehensive investigation of staff sexual misconduct involving rape or other sexual assault on inmates.” However, this has not stopped the widespread practice of utilizing solitary to punish those who speak out. An investigation (PDF) into sexual abuse at Alabama’s Tutwiler Prison for Women found that women who report sexual abuse “are routinely placed in segregation by the warden.” Some prison systems have also created new rules to continue discouraging reports of staff sexual assault. At Denver Women’s Correctional Facility, a woman reported that prison officials responded to PREA by creating a rule called “False Reporting to Authorities.”

Read the rest of the article

Prison staff responsible for half of reported inmate sexual abuse cases

Original Article

01/24/2014

Allegations of sexual abuse in US prisons are on the rise, and correctional staff are responsible for half of reported incidents, according to a new Department of Justice study (Here & Here). Meanwhile, prosecution for such abuse is very rare.

The report released Thursday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics deals with data collected and offered by administrators at federal, state, and many county adult prisons. From 2009 to 2011, administrators reported about 25,000 allegations “of sexual victimization in prisons, jails, and other adult correctional facilities,” the report states. Yearly totals in that time span gradually increased, reaching 8,763 in 2011.

The latest three-year count is up 11 percent from the Justice Department’s previous report, which included 2007 and 2008.

Prison staff were responsible for 49 percent of incidents reported from 2009 to 2011. These are classified as staff sexual misconduct (any sexual act aimed at an inmate from staff) or sexual harassment (verbal statements of a sexual nature meant to demean).

The other 51 percent of allegations of non-consensual sex acts (most serious) and abusive sexual contacts were those between inmates. Of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, 18 percent of substantiated incidents resulted in physical injury. Less than one percent of staff-on-inmate victimization resulted in injury, the report said.

At the same time, the number of abuse allegations dismissed as “unfounded” or “unsubstantiated” by prison facility officials has increased. Only around 10 percent - or 902 - of incidents substantiated after investigation. This number has not significantly changed since 2005.

Prosecution for crimes committed by correctional staff are extremely rare, the report shows. Over three-quarters of prison staff responsible for sexual misconduct were allowed to resign before an investigation concluded - leaving no record of the offense - or were fired. Around 45 percent were referred for prosecution. Yet, only one percent of perpetrators were convicted.

“These findings point to a level of impunity in our prisons and jails that is simply unacceptable,” said Lovisa Stannow, executive director of prisoner advocacy group Just Detention International, according to ProPublica.

“When corrections agencies don’t punish or choose to ignore sexual abuse committed by staff members - people who are paid by our tax dollars to keep inmates safe - they support criminal behaviour,” Stannow added.

Whether sexual abuse in prisons is on the rise or there are simply more outlets for reporting victimization remains unclear. Justice Department statistician Allen Beck, who prepared the report, told ProPublica that the increase may be tied to awareness of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act.

“It’s a matter of speculation, but certainly there’s been a considerable effort to inform staff about the dangers of sexual misconduct, so we could be seeing the impact of that,” said Beck.

The Justice Department’s statistics - supplied by prison administrators - contrast starkly with a 2013 survey of inmates which showed that over 80,000 prisoners had been sexually victimized by other inmates or staff in a two-year period.
- And since the info was given to them by prison staff, it's probably a lot larger than this report states!

“Inmates don’t report because of the way the institution handles these complaints: they’re afraid if they do report, then the staff will retaliate,” Kim Shayo Buchanan, law professor at the University of Southern California, told ProPublica.

OK - Did a murderer and a sex offender just save Oklahoma $20 million?

Joseph Harp Correctional Center

Original Article

10/29/2013

By REID WILSON

Bobby Cleveland, an Oklahoma state representative, had some questions about the amount of money being spent at Joseph Harp Correctional Center. As chairman of the state House’s Public Safety Committee, state prisons fall under his jurisdiction. But on a tour of the prison facility, he and two fellow representatives found something they didn’t expect: a software program written by two inmates that could save the prison, and maybe the state, a lot of money.

The program tracks inmates as they proceed through food lines, to make sure they don’t go through the lines twice, Cleveland said in an interview. It can help the prison track how popular a particular meal is, so purchasers know how much food to buy in the future. And it can track tools an inmate checks out to perform their jobs.

“It’s a pretty neat program. It’s all done by the direction of the supervisor, one of these guys who’s kind of, what do you call it, thinking outside the box,” Cleveland said.

Cleveland said the program, if implemented statewide, could save Oklahoma up to $20 million a year.

It can also track incoming shipments of food and supplies — and catch discrepancies, like the one that raised red flags with Cleveland and his colleagues, state Reps. Scott Martin (R) and Jason Murphey (R). The software showed that Sysco, which supplies food to the state prison system, was charging the state different prices for the same food item sent to two different facilities, according to the Daily Oklahoman, which first reported the program Monday.

The program came to lawmakers’ attention when Cleveland took a tour of the facility without the prison warden around. He brought his colleagues to a subsequent visit to hear about the program.

“It does kind of expose the waste at all the other facilities. It was just one of those genuine, lightning-strikes things,” Murphey said.

“When you deal with the way state government spends money, billions of dollars go through” the system, Murphey said. “You’re always dependent upon those at the ground level to report what’s going on. Here in this facility, you had those employees at the ground level taking their jobs very seriously.”

The supervisor, William Weldon, worked with two technologically-savvy inmates to develop the program. Prisoners each have a bar code they can scan, which then shows prison officials who has eaten a meal, or checked out a spatula before a shift in the kitchen, or borrowed a pair of gloves to scrub dishes after a meal. Jerry Massie, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, said prison officials at Joseph Harp have used the software for about two years.

The software could even help save the state from lawsuits. Cleveland said several prisoners have sued over being denied special meals, whether for medical or religious reasons. When an inmate’s bar code is scanned, prison officials would be alerted that they should receive a diabetic meal, or a Halal or Kosher meal.

Massie said it was premature to think the program can make the leap from one prison to the rest of the state penitentiary system. But, he added, the program is working for Joseph Harp.

One caution flag, Murphey said, is that any software created by inmates to track something as valuable as food would need constant monitoring.

“If they build on what they’ve done here, they actually have to script it out. If you have inmates writing code, there has to be a continual auditing process,” he said. “Food in prison is a commodity. It’s currency.”

The Department of Corrections wouldn’t identify the inmates who created the program, beyond saying that one of them is a sex offender and one is serving a sentence for murder. They may not be the most savory characters, but the program appears to be working.

“They built a system that could save the state millions of dollars,” Cleveland said. “I want to get the state using this thing.”

AUSTRALIA - Sex-offender care to cost $1600 per day

Original Article

10/22/2013

By NEDA VANOVAC

The Northern Territory's attorney-general says taxpayers should not foot an exorbitant bill to keep a sex offender under 24-hour community supervision if prison is an option.

Under the NT's new Serious Sex Offender Act, the government can apply to the Supreme Court to keep sex offenders in prison indefinitely beyond their sentence in order to protect the community.

Attorney-General John Elferink says the act can be justified on grounds of both cost and community safety but, in the Supreme Court on Monday, Justice Jenny Blokland ruled that a 34-year-old man from central Australia should not be detained but put under 24-hour supervision for five years.

Mr Elferink says the government does not want to ask Territorians to pay high costs when the best place to keep an eye on someone is in custody.

It costs $214 per day to keep a person in prison, but 24-hour supervision for the offender in Monday's ruling runs to more than $1600 per day.

"The Territory taxpayer is a finite resource and my primary concern is making sure that potential rapists don't rape," he said.

"There's always going to be a bill attached to keeping a person in custody, but to ask us to pay multiple times that amount is not what I would consider an effective outcome for the community."

Mr Elferink said there appeared to be a focus on the offender's prospects of rehabilitation by the court, which he said was secondary to the safety of the wider population.

He said he would seek legal advice to revisit how the legislation operates if judges continued to rule against indefinite detention for serious sex offenders.

"If a person is declared to be a serious risk to the community, then it might be the case that how that person is managed is left to government," he said.

The man, who cannot be named, had completed a one-year jail term for sexually assaulting a nine-year-old girl at Hermannsburg near Alice Springs and exposing children to pornography in July 2012.

He had previously been jailed for sex offences and has assault convictions.

He has been living in a caravan since July on the grounds of Darwin's Berrimah jail on an interim supervision order until the new act was tested in court.

"The client had a background that justified a view that he was a serious danger to the community, though he wouldn't have been so recognised if the legislation hadn't been framed in a particular way," defence counsel Rex Wild QC told AAP on Tuesday.

"He's not the worst sex offender you've ever heard of."

Mr Wild said the NT is following the knee-jerk reactions of other jurisdictions in implementing the legislation.

"The political view is always `lock `em up for as long as you can and the community will reward you for it'," he said.

"Politicians are in a place where they can't lose on this, because nobody cares about an Aboriginal offender who's already committed one or two offences."

Justice Blokland said in her ruling the act raised questions of civil liberty, and that evidence suggested the offender's likelihood of assimilating back into the community would shrink if he spent an extended period in prison.

"In the longer term, a supervision order supports the primary object of protection under the act and is preferable to detention," she said.

"It is reasonable in my opinion that a form of intensive supervision be ordered, even if that will mean a readjustment of resource distribution within Correctional Services."

Henry Rollins Says: Watch This Thing on Prison Profiteers

Video Description:
Henry Rollins (Wikipedia) narrates the Prison Profiteers video series profiling the powerful institutions benefiting from locking up too many people for too long. See all the vids and take action here.

UK - Blackburn teen’s prison hell on false rape charge

Original Article

10/10/2013

A teenager has spoken of his nine-month hell in jail awaiting trial after being accused of rape and kidnap.

_____ was freed on Tuesday after being cleared by a jury of tying a 16-year-old girl to his bed and attacking her.

The jury took just 30 minutes to clear him of four charges of rape, one of kidnap and another of imprisonment.

The 19-year-old, from Revidge Road, Blackburn, said he was abused by other prisoners and put in isolation for his own safety during his stay in HM Prison Preston.

He had been told no bail hostel could be found for him.

He said: “It was horrible. I wasn’t treated like I was innocent, I was treated like any other prisoner.”

“I got put in isolation because my name was in the paper. I was treated like I had done something wrong.”

“On the way to court I was separated in the van. The other prisoners were shouting out ‘where’s that nonce, where’s the rapist?’ I’m just happy to be out of there.”

Mr _____ was arrested last November and initially bailed to his mum’s home in Bournemouth, but he was re-arrested when it was discovered he was living with his 14-year-old sister.

He said: “The judge apologized for remanding me and said if they could find a bail hostel outside Lancashire I could stay there, but they couldn't. I’m not sure how hard they looked.”

“I can understand why the police were worried because my accuser said she was scared of me, but they could have put me somewhere in the south. I was crushed. The whole world was put on my shoulders.”

During his trial, the court heard Mr _____ stopped his motorbike when he saw the alleged victim walking near the Raj restaurant in Bolton Road, Blackburn, with two friends.

He took her to the house where his father was staying and was alleged to have attacked her. The defence said the girl had gone willingly.

Mr _____ said: “It only took the jury half an hour to call a verdict. When I heard ‘not guilty’ I was shaking and crying with relief.”

“When they said it, a few members of the jury looked at me and nodded, as if to say, ‘you’re welcome’.”

Mr _____’s grandmother, _____, called for defendants accused of sex offences to be granted anonymity until they are proven guilty, and is worried whether her grandson would ever be able to return to Blackburn.

The 60-year-old said: “The alleged victim has to remain anonymous, which is right, but so should the accused. But we got him home, and that’s the main thing.”