Rape in the American Prison
In 2003, Congress passed legislation to eliminate sexual assaults against inmates. One young man’s story shows how elusive that goal remains.
▻https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/rape-in-the-american-prison/385550
The rituals of intake were familiar. Standing in a line with several dozen other men, John stripped off his navy blue scrubs, squatted, and coughed to prove he wasn’t hiding anything. Once inside, he could try grimacing to look tough, as he had in his early mugshots, but he couldn’t hide his skinny frame or his high-pitched voice.
Over the next few days, while bringing trays of food around the blocks for his new kitchen job, John would learn that he had been placed in one of the nicer units (another he saw “looked like a basement, with the lights busted out”). But he also noticed that he was one of the youngest prisoners on the block. The other prisoners noticed too. He was what they called a “fish.”