The prison industry itself estimates that there are probably 12,000 rapes of prisoners per year. This number is higher than the number of reported rapes in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York combined. But when was the last time that this was address in the media? When was the last time a politician ever took a stand against it and promised to try and get it to stop? After all, prisons are more tightly controlled environments than big cities - if officials had the will to reduce the numbers, they have the means.

Daniel Brook writes in Legal Affairs:

Despite its prevalence, prison rape has generally been treated by courts and corrections officials as it has by novelists and filmmakers—as a problem without a solution. Prison rape is rarely prosecuted; like most crimes committed in prison, rapes aren't taken on by local district attorneys but left to corrections officials to handle. When inmates seek civil damages against the prison system, as Johnson has done, they must prove not merely that prison officials should have done more to prevent abuse but that they showed "deliberate indifference"—that is, that they had actual knowledge that an inmate was at risk and disregarded it. Showing that a prison guard should have known is not enough, no matter how obvious the signs of abuse.

The feminist mantra that "rape isn't about sex, it's about power" may be even more applicable in the prison context, where it is common for men who would have never engaged in sexual contact with other men on the outside to become rapists when incarcerated. What's more, the relationship between rapist and victim in prison is often more than just a sexual one—it can devolve into out-and-out servitude. Victims are given women's names and made to perform household tasks such as cooking food, washing clothes, and cleaning the living space.

The traditional rationale for prison rape is the lack of women, but most psychologists consider this facile. They see prison rape mainly as a means by which people who have been stripped of control over the most basic aspects of their lives—when to eat a meal, take a shower, or watch TV—can reclaim some sense of power. As one Louisiana prisoner, Wilbert Rideau, wrote, "the psychological pain involved in such an existence creates an urgent and terrible need for reinforcement of [a prisoner's] sense of manhood and personal worth." Others believe that prisoners become rapists out of fear of becoming victims themselves; it's a choice between becoming predator or prey. The psychologist Daniel Lockwood, in his study Prison Sexual Violence, calls this strategy "pre-emptive self-defense."

While humor about conventional rape has always been taboo, jokes about prison rape remain common. ... [T]hey are symptoms of a more disturbing phenomenon: an indifference to the rights of prisoners or perhaps even an acceptance of rape as a de facto part of the punishment. It may be unseemly to admit finding solace in the thought that a convicted child molester or rapist will get a taste of his own medicine behind bars, but who hasn't had such a thought or heard such an idea expressed by another?

No one makes jokes about rapes out in the streets. No one makes jokes about rapes done by soldiers during war. People do, however, make jokes about prisoners being raped. Some of those prisoners being raped have done heinous things and some have not, but does either situation justify not only treating rape as a form of punishment, but in fact one that brings psychological and emotional pleasure to others?

Read More:

• Guide to Ethics and Morality