On 4 Aug 2005, at 2:01 am, Dan Minette wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "William T Goodall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <brin-l@mccmedia.com>
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 6:59 PM
Subject: Re: Gulags
http://www.spr.org/en/academicarticles/odonnell.html
"Why is it that an aspect of prison life that appears to be so
tightly woven into the prisoner's experience in the United States is
not to be found in any concentrated form in the UK?"
I've followed this discussion, and it is interesting that this one
report's
findings was accepted without any thought to cross referencing. So, I
decided to do that.
It's a report by a criminologist published in a criminology journal
with footnotes and everything!
First, almost by coincidence, the Justice department has released
the first
official survey of rape in US prisons.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050731/us_nm/
rights_rape_dc_1
There were less than 4000 reported cases of inmate-on-inmate rapes
last
year. That translates into about a 0.2% probability for a person in
prison. The report itself indicated that this number was low,
giving a
number of reasons why prisoners would not be forthcoming about
being raped.
Whereas this report admits that it is completely flawed and more or
less worthless.
So, I'll not pretend that the US number is low. But, this report
indicates
that the reported rape rate in US prisions is low....which can be
compared
to the survey results in GB. Unless one can show that there is not
significant underreporting in surveys in GB, like there is in the
official
US report, then one needs to consider that the differences are the
differences when one compares apples and oranges.
Second, there is the question of the "more polite" British
society. Well,
for a more polite society, the violent crime rate is very
high....significantly higher than the US. Looking at the Ecconomist
report:
http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=513031
And this has *nothing to do with prison rape at all*
--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
"The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience
and Hubris" - Larry Wall
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