Send Holiday Hope to an Incarcerated Survivor of Rape

Social Commentary post by Kjerstin Johnson on December 22, 2011 - 3:16pm;

This holiday season, take some time to go to Just Detention International and send a message to an incarcerated survivor of prison rape. From justdetention.org As Cara from The Curvature puts it:

Currently incarcerated persons are probably already the most isolated individuals in the United States. Those who are not only incarcerated but also the victims of sexual violence while imprisoned face little support, few mental health and recovery services, the ongoing threat of violence, and even retaliation should they speak of the abuse. With their support networks ripped from them, their right to safety revoked, and their abusers (who are most frequently prison officials) having control over every aspect of their lives, they are among the most vulnerable sexual assault survivors.

In light of this, sending a 250 character message of support and greeting during the holiday season may seem a truly underwhelming gesture. It is precisely these same conditions, however, that makes such a small act able to speak volumes. Incarcerated persons are cultural pariahs, socially treated as subhuman, and/or told that they deserve sexual violence as a condition of their detention. A few kind and compassionate words, under those circumstances, could mean the world.

Read more here. Send your message here.

Just Detention International is a non-profit dedicated to ending sexual violence of incarcerated people worldwide. Their website has a multitude of resources, from state-specific survivor resource guides, media like Portraits of Courage, and basic information for educating yourself about sexual violence in prisons.

They also created these powerful posters:
two images of the same Latino man side by side. In the first picture he wears a white t-shirt. The text reads, Would you joke around about this man being raped?. In the second image, he is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. The text reads, How about now?
two images of the same young woman side by side. In the first picture she wears a pink top with ruffly sleaves. The text reads If this woman was being raped, would you help her? In the second image, she is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. The text reads, How About Now?
two images of the same black man side by side. In the first picture he wears a white t-shirt. The text reads, If you could stop this man from getting AIDS, would you? In the second image, he is wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. The text reads, How about now?

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Comments

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attribution

Posted by Cara Kulwicki (not verified) on December 22, 2011 - 3:41pm

So glad to see this getting some more publicity -- though I would like to note that the quoted text was written not by Just Detention, but by, um, me. :) (The original can be found at my blog.) Actually, I appreciate the heads up, as it seems that JDI provided attribution to me on their "press" index but not the page displaying the text itself. Off to email them and get that corrected.

oh geez!

Posted by Kjerstin Johnson on December 22, 2011 - 3:53pm

Thank you for the clarification, Cara. I think I carelessly did not read that the JDI page I copied and pasted it from was "JDI in the news." I've changed the text to attribute you at The Curvature. Thanks so much for originally writing about it!

____________
Kjerstin Johnson, editor-in-chief
Did someone say "Comments Policy"?

This is awesome! Thank you.

Posted by Kane Assaults (not verified) on December 22, 2011 - 5:19pm

This is awesome! Thank you.

Such an important cause

Posted by Polly Allen on December 23, 2011 - 3:08pm

Thanks for posting about this. It's so sad to think of people struggling to cope after a sexual assault, which is made ten times worse if they're in prison. They certainly can't escape to a safe place in the same way that a non-incarcerated person could. I hope that this cause gets lots of publicity because women and men in this situation don't always get the support they deserve.

Polly Allen