Ohio Prisoner Punished for Reporting Rape

This piece from Mother Jones details the rape of an inmate at the Ohio Reformatory Woman. The shocking lack of investigation and subsequent treatment of Michelle Ortiz, the inmate in question, are issues that are now making their way to the U.S. Supreme Court. I was an Intern with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction in the Security Threat Group. While I worked with a good group of people the attitude that surrounded the issue of rape was general in-credulousness. I was funded under the department's allotment of grant monies stemming from the Prison Rape Elimination Act even though my duties had nothing to with the prevention of rape (especially staff on inmate assault). It is interesting to note that several of the guards at Abu Ghraib including Charles Graner were civilian correctional officers before their service in the army where their skills regarding abuse were refined and brought to the Iraq War. The Standford Prison Experiment highlighted the lengths that Correctional Officers might go to in order to humiliate prisoners(including sexual humiliation) but its lessons were not heeded until more than twenty years latter when the photos of Abu Ghraib surfaced.