A right-wing “think tank” released a report today criticizing the Obama administration’s new anti-prison rape protections as a “burden” that is too “costly” and “heavy-handed.”This week, the Department of Justice published new standards addressing the epidemic of rape and sexual abuse in our nation’s prisons. The guidelines, which apply immediately to federal prisons and give financial incentives for states to comply, are a laudable, widely praised, and long overdue step in combating rape in the United States.
The American Action Forum, a Wall Street-funded group whose C(4) runs millions of dollars in attack ads against Democrats, responded by lambasting the move as too “costly” and “complicated.” From their report:
Analysis: Despite an admirable goal, this “landmark rule” imposes a costly, complicated regulatory framework on states currently battling recurring budget deficits, offers little assurance of success, and fails to explain this new burden to the states as required by the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act. Not only is success questionable at best, the DOJ’s own estimates illustrate the fiscal effects of such a heavy-handed approach.
The Weekly Standard echoed AAF’s response, bemoaning the cost of preventing people from being raped in prison. The total expected cost is less than 1 percent of the overall cost of our prison system and ultimately “end up saving money — for example, by avoiding the medical costs of injuries suffered by rape victims,” according to the New York Times.
Sexual assault in prisons is so prevalent that more men are raped in the United States than women. Actually doing something about that, however, is too “costly” a “burden” for conservatives.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012...ape/?mobile=nc
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