Knowing some countries in europe I wouldn’t be surprised to find it was higher.
That was me. You can check post #87 here to see my opinion on prison quality and recidivism. Spoiler alert: I tend to agree with Norway on early offenders such as young people, first timers, and “crime of passion” criminals. ;)
FWIW, in one of my recent wild-and-crazy idea times, during which I come up with strange and wacky new business plans for airlines, private islands, etc. that would make Richard Branson look like an uptight young Republican, I had an idea for a non-profit organization building smallish incarceration facilities and how certain ideas on segmenting and decency might encourage hardened young people (say under 25 y.o.) to leave that life behind and be socially responsible people again.
While not directly related, this is an interesting report on European detention without trial abuses (and discusses some of the prison conditions for these folks.)
Interesting. I just skimmed it and might read it all later.
I know that my country is often critizised for the length of pre-trial imprisonment and the overuse of solitary confinement (considered torture by many standards) - but we still don’t have prison rapes.
And I saw that this report focused on countries like Poland, Hungary and Greece and as I said earlier the EU is not a single country but many countries very unlike each other. I wouldn’t want to go to prison in those countries either and I’m sure that this is an issue where EU wide standards would be great - as long as the exemplary Scandinavian countries wouldn’t have to lower our standards instead of raising the standards elsewhere.
(Posted on my Blergerpad using Joobertalk)
Yet Scandanavia, by most accounts I have read, leads Europe in rapes outside of prison. One link:
http://www.thelocal.se/19102/#
But a search shows the same thing. Understand prison rape has nothing in common with rape outside of prison, just thought it was an interesting contrast.
Huh, that’s surprising. The table here shows wildly varying rape rates across the OECD, with no particularly obvious pattern. Spain at 3, Sweden at 22.5, Netherlands at 10.
I wonder if the amounts actually reported vary or something. The wikipedia page talks like they’re controversial.
Statistics on rape and sexual assault are common in Western countries and are becoming more common throughout the world. Inconsistent definitions of rape, different rates of reporting, recording, prosecution and conviction for rape create controversial statistical disparities, and lead to accusations that many rape statistics are unreliable or misleading. According to USA Today reporter Kevin Johnson “no other major category of crime – not murder, assault or robbery – has generated a more serious challenge of the credibility of national crime statistics” than rape.[1]
The listing for Sweden:
Sweden has the highest incidence of reported rapes in Europe and one of the highest in the world. According to a 2009 study, there were 46 incidents of rape per 100,000 residents. This figure is double as many as in the UK which reports 23 cases, and four times that of the other Nordic countries, Germany and France. The figure is up to 20 times the figure for certain countries in southern and eastern Europe.[36]
According to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, the high numbers are explained by a broader legal definiton of rape than in other countries, and an effort to register all suspected and repeated rapes. A comparison based on victim surveys places Sweden at an average level among European nations.[37]
Another source here, using 2006 data; holy cow, look at Australia.
So there you go: no one really knows. Sheesh.
Asserting something over and over doesn’t make it any more true, nor does it provide any evidence for your assertion. There’s no data specifically about Europe (which is the region you put forward as being prison-rape-free, so don’t get all up in Jeff’s grill for looking there) because it doesn’t seem anyone’s bothered to check. The closest we can get is studies from the UK, which show rates being the same, or studies of out-of-prison rapes, which are at best similar but probably significantly higher in northern Europe.
Give it up already. We all understand that you’re super-patriotic, but you have nothing backing up your assertions about prison rape.
No, seriously, there’s just a certain n’est ce pas about their garden variety prisoners that sets them head and shoulders above the madding crowd!