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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
Partners in CrimeEugenia Tsao reports on the upcoming revision of one of the most important books in America, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Here’s where the drug lords, the shrinks and the insurance companies collude in establishing hundreds of bogus psychic conditions requiring the psychotropic drugs from which they reap billions every year. There are about 250,000 migrant laborers in Israel, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Palestinians can’t find work. From Tel Aviv, Yonatan Preminger reports on Israel’s vicious employment strategy. Also in this latest newsletter Andrew Cockburn updates his CounterPunch world exclusive on how the U.S. has secretly helped build Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 8, 2009 Saul Landau July 7, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Uri Avnery Brian M. Downing Gary Leupp Gregory A. Burris David Macaray Laura Flanders Alan Farago Greg Moses Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 6, 2009 Patrick Cockburn Diana Johnstone Nikolas Kozloff Gary Leupp Jonathan Cook Tim Wise Franklin Lamb Charles R. Larson Carlos Benemann Shepherd Bliss Jerry Kroth Karyn Strickler Website of the Day July 3-5, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Eamonn Fingleton Jeffrey St. Clair Mike Whitney Pam Martens George Ciccariello-Maher Paul Craig Roberts Patrick Cockburn Anthony DiMaggio Roger Burbach John Ross Nikolas Kozloff Gareth Porter Andy Worthington Saul Landau David Macaray Adam Federman Jane Slaughter Labor's Vague Rally for Health Care Russell Mokhiber Black Caucus Muzzled on Israeli Kidnapping of McKinney Robert Jensen Robert Bryce Belén Fernandez Missy Comley Beattie C. G. Estabrook Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 2, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff Wendell Potter Ellen Hodgson Brown Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent? Patrick Irelan Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq Nicola Nasser Brian Tokar Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 1, 2009 Vijay Prashad Alberto Vallente Thorensen Paul Craig Roberts Robert Weissman Manuel García, Jr. Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete Norman Solomon Franklin Lamb Martha Rosenberg Diane Rejman Website of the Day June 30, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Benjamin Dangl Jonathan Cook Franklin Lamb George Wuerthner Todd Gordon Ron Jacobs Kenneth Libby Julian Vigo Website of the Day
June 29, 2009 Ishmael Reed Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Conn Hallinan James G. Abourezk Ralph Nader Carol Miller Greg Moses Website of the Day June 26-28, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Doug Peacock Daniel Wolff Mike Whitney John Ross David Rosen Emily Ratner Gareth Porter Farid Marjai Nadia Hijab Paul Craig Roberts Fred Gardner Carl Ginsburg Paul Watson David Ker Thomson Farzana Versey Geoff Berne Todd Alan Price Ramzy Baroud Jeff Sher Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value? Glen Johnson Charlotte Laws Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 25, 2009 Kathy Kelly Jack Bratich Wendell Potter Charles R. Larson Alan Farago Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter Bitta Mostofi / David Macaray Mark Schuller Website of the Day June 24, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Dean Baker Andy Worthington James Bovard Diana Gibson / P. Sainath Gareth Porter Robert Alvarez Dave Lindorff Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi Website of the Day
June 23, 2009 David Price Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway / Dave Lindorff Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Gary Leupp Brian M. Downing Robert Bryce Nicholas Dearden Yousef Munayyer Website of the Day June 22, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Chris Floyd Jack Z. Bratich Atash Yaghmaian Laura Carlsen Paul Craig Roberts Vijay Prashad Fred Gardner Andy Thayer David Macaray Website of the Day
June 19 - 21, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Al Giordano Henry A. Giroux Anthony DiMaggio Paul Craig Roberts John Ross Gareth Porter Carl Ginsburg Tommi Avicolli Mecca Joe Bageant Serge Halimi P. Sainath Jim Goodman Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Robert Fantina Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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July 8, 2009 When Sadism Goes SystematicPrison Rape as PolicyBy DAVID ROSEN On June 23rd, the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (NPREC) issued its long awaited report on the state of rape in America’s prisons. This august group’s findings were duly noted in the flood of daily media and, like so many other well-intentioned blue-ribbon commission reports, will be quickly forgotten. However, while unstated, its primary finding is evident to all: the American prison system is the domestic corollary to the global war on terror. Rape is sexual violence, a personal and social ritual of patriarchy. Men most often rape women and girls, reminding them that physical terror and sexual violation enforce the structure of power. Male rape of men, like their rape of females, serves to harm the victim, both to physically terrorize and to psychologically shame. Male rape of other males asserters the darkest dimension of masculinity under patriarchy. Rape victims, both women and men, share an existential sense of violation; the victim is both physically invaded or overpowered and shamed or stigmatized. For the perpetrator, rape enables him to enforce the structure of social hierarchy and control. Nowhere is the need to delineate the structure of power greater than the prison and the military. As Foucault made clear in “Discipline and * * * Angela Davis astutely observed years ago that we live under the domestic tyranny of a prison-industrial complex. It is cousin to the military-industrial complex first identified by Eisenhower a half-century ago and that still drives American global imperialism. Like Rome of old, America is a garrison state. According to the NPREC study, more than 7.3 million people are captives of the American “correctional facilities or supervised” by the criminal justice system. Among these are some 2.2 million adults imprisoned throughout the country and an addition 5.1 million adults “under correctional supervision” in federal, state and local facilities throughout the country. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) finds that, in 2006, 112,498 federal and state prisoners were women; white, blacks and Hispanic made up 40, 42 and 16 percent, respectively, of the prison population. Finally, nearly 100,000 juveniles were under confinement, more than half being 16 years or younger. [see www.nrpec.us; see also Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prisoners in 2006”] The report informs readers that this vast enterprise costs an estimated $68 billion annually. This apparently includes the costs involved running 146 state and federal prisons, 282 local jails and attendant services operating throughout the country. However, the figure does not appear to include the nation’s police forces, the prosecutors and the courts that operate the machinery of the prison-industrial system. * * * According to the NPREC study, in 2007, “an estimated 60,500 State and Federal prisoners were sexually abused during [the previous] 12-month period.” This amounts to approximately 4.5 percent of the prison population. Buried deep within the study is one of many amazing findings: About 2 percent of all respondents reported incidents in which the perpetrator was another prisoner; 2.9 percent reported incidents perpetrated by corrections staff. (Some respondents had been abused by both staff and other prisoners.) This information is dropped into a long recitation of prison rape data, the commission acknowledges the ugly fact and quickly passes over it. What does it mean for a policing system when essentially 50 percent more of the reported rapes in prison are committed by trained law-enforcement officials? Other findings are equally disturbing. For example, younger adult inmates aged 18 to 24 years were subject to nearly twice the rate of abuse as those 25 years and older (i.e., 4.6% to 2.4%). Not surprising, nearly six times more self-described homosexuals were subject to sexual violence than those claiming to be heterosexual (18.5% to 2.7%); rape among those identified as bisexual or “other orientation” fell by half (9.8% to 2.7%). Similarly disturbing, nearly one-fifth (19.7%) of youths under 18 years in residential juvenile facilities report at least one “nonconsensual sexual contact.” Adding to the alarm, the report sites BJS data which finds that in 2006 in adult facilities “substantiated allegations” of sexual abuse stood at 2.9 per 1,000 incarcerated prisoners, while in juvenile facilities the rate of sexual abuse was 16.8 per 1,000. In addition, the study asserts: “Simply being female is a risk factor.” It notes, “women were more likely than men to be sexually victimized (5% compared with 3%).” According to BJS data from 2005–2006, “36 percent of all victims in substantiated incidents of sexual violence were female.” It asserts: “Girls are disproportionately represented among sexual abuse victims. … And they are much more at risk of abuse by staff than by their peers.” Who are most at risk? The report identifies them as follows:
Add to these the disabled and those suffering mental illness. Prison is hell, especially for the most vulnerable. The consequences of sexual violence in prison is staggering. It leads to profound psychological damage including, in the words of the report, “posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, fear of loud noises or sudden movements, panic attacks, and intense flashbacks to the traumatic event.” It also leads to serious internal injuries, long-term medical conditions and exposure to HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The NPREC report provides snapshot profiles of many prisoners who were raped while incarcerated. Their stories are painful. Some were victims of one-on-one rapes, others suffered gang rapes. All paid a price, including suicide. One of the report’s weaknesses is that it offers no discussion of the perpetrators. There are no interviews, no psychological assessments, no speculation as to what motivates these violent, angry and sometime psychopathic rapists. Because of this, a deeper question posed by rape in prison cannot be addressed: Why do perpetrators commit rape? Because the question cannot be asked, the report cannot fully address the meaning of rape in a prison. That’s why we need Foucault. * * * America’s prison-industrial complex, like the health-insurance industry, is not designed to solve the problem it is ostensibly intended to address. The healthcare industry is a financial turnstile providing employment and profits to insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies and other vendors; patient health is a means to an end. Similarly, prisons are jobs programs and tax boons to localities starving for revenue; prisoner rehabilitation is rarely in the equation. Prisons are hellholes. Prison literature and biographical reflections, from Dickens or Solzhenitsyn, Malcolm X or Mumia Abu-Jamal, are testaments to truth telling and courage, not favorable prison conditions. As a document, the NPREC report reads like a research backgrounder for a futurist horror film. It paints a truly gruesome portrait of America’s prison conditions. Sadly, the report’s cast of characters does not include a Cagney of “Public Enemy” or a George Jackson at San Quentin or a Frank “Big Black” Smith at Attica. Without mass social unrest outside, the upheaval of the ’30s and the ‘70s, the culture inside the prison is one of victims and predators, not revolutionaries. The NPREC report is a political document, like the 9-11 report. It focuses national attention on a truly horrific social occurrence, rape within the America’s prison system. It proposes a series of programmatic solutions to address the problem. Reading between the lines, it makes clear that the America police-justice-prison system doesn’t work. The question is simple: Will the report be buried or help end sexual violence in prison? Much depends on how successful Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) is in getting support for (yes, you guessed it) a commission to assess the U.S. justice system and propose recommendations for its reform. Pat the pol on the back, a worthy effort that actually might be executed over the next election cycle. Unfortunately, nothing changes easily in America, especially when powerful moralistic or financial interests are at stake. Sometimes less is more: Rape might actually be reduced if the Obama Justice Department would adopt the NPREC recommendations. People’s lives are at risk. In Dante’s medieval classic, “The Divine Comedy,” the seventh circle of hell is reserved for sodomites. They are located at the bottom-most rung of the seventh circle, below murders who kill for gain and suicides who violate the law of self-preservation. Dante, however, distinguished between those (males) who engage in homosexual acts that we might call “acts of love” and those who engage in acts of violation, pedophilia and rape. Hell is different for each. The sexual violator lives in a hell all his (and, occasionally, her) own. He thrives in prison and the military as a guard, fellow-prisoner, soldier or interrogator. The sexual violator is an enforcer. He asserts a dying patriarchy that, sadly, finds it most meaningful expression in the sexual hellhole of the prison-industrial system, the seventh circle of 21st century hell. David Rosen is the author of “Sex Scandals America: Politics & the Ritual of Public Shaming” (Key, 2009); he can be reached at drosen@ix.netcom.com.
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
Spell Albuquerque:
Waiting for
Lightning
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Punish: the Birth of the Prison,
