California tried it for a while to lower gang violence (and the segregation worked), but the courts said they had to stop. I can't recall if it was a state court or federal court, but either way the one experiment with separation by race didn't work.

Ezra Klein wrote a series of posts on Prison Rape that are really worth reading. As it happens, my roommates were busy cracking jokes about prison rape while I was reading them, and I kind of flew off at them. Accuse me of having no sense of humor, i.....

I propose five classifications. Black, Hispanic, White, Asian and Mixed. Anyone who wants, and stays of trouble, and has no history of threats can go to mixed. Mixed would soon have most of the prisoners. Pie in the sky!!! But, it would work to reduce violence.

As for the guards being accessories-so spoken by somebody who hasn't been inside a prison or jail. There are plenty of out of sight of the guards places to rape, extort and beat other inmates. Also, the lower the security, the more opportunities there are. The guards are often unaware of what happened, and inmates in general have an unwritten code that you don't actually complain about this stuff, so what happens is an inmate shows up with unexplained injuries, but that inmate doesn't talk/accuse anyone (and sometimes they do not know who their attackers were). It is a sort of circular problem-to tell the people in charge may put you at further risk, but not telling may keep you at risk, just less than if you tell.

Prisons aren't pretty places, and while there are some nicer prisons than others, none of them would be considered nice or cushy.

Are the police on duty in a city when a crime is committed in that city accessories to the crime?

Chris,

As we have seen with raced based preferences and same sex marriages, even if the 'elites' are against something doesn't mean it can't happen. I suspect Texas would not have any problem getting political and popular support behind the idea of a death penalty for prison rape.

Lets assume for a second that Texas did try instituting a death penalty for prison rape and 5 years latter found prison rapes were significantly reduced (50%, 75%, 99%, whatever you want to call a significant reduction). Can you really imagine voters in most states would support higher taxes or reduced funding for schools to support your ideas?

Surely citizens out of prison should have as much right to be secure from rape as prisoners. Do you really think that the majority of voters would go for an idea that says we will increase public housing units, get better police men and modernize our communities in an effort to reduce rapes, but we won't hold the rapists accountable in a meaningful way?

Sorry, you may not like the death penalty, but it does have the virtue of having a very low recidivism rate.

- what are you talking about? how is prison comfortable? are you trying to say that gang rape and murder are acceptable because prisons need to be less comfortable? are you saying that you wouldn’t do it, but its ok if others do it? do you get pleasure from this? could you please clarify. Your statements are not only contradictory, they are cowardly.

I doubt a consensus could include the death penalty either; no matter its popularity among the mass public, the elite consensus is moving against it. And what do you do in the states that don't actually have or enforce the death penalty already?

My guess is that cutting overcrowding, putting all prisoners in individual cells, getting better guards, and modernizing facilities are key.

Man, I hate when I agree with RJN.

Too many three strike laws.

I *really* hate it.

Also, racial segregation would help in many ways.

Ah, thanks. I couldn't have handled the trifecta.

There in lies the rub. If you take the death penalty out of the mix of possible solutions, then you also are likely to find it harder to pull together a political consensus. For most of the other solutions (let 'minor' offenders out, spend more, etc) don't hold the person doing the rape responsible. Arguably, those solutions reward the rapist with better conditions.

I'm not up on the supremes latest hits in re the death penalty and when it can be applied. What was the last case restricting the death penalty to murder and the voting record? In short, is there a reasonable chance that with heightened chance of getting the right guy through DNA search and the countervailing issue of the prisoner's being able to serve his sentence free of rape, I would think it would be worth while testing the law again.

I would have to see the reasoning, but I suspect that a finding that the constitution barred the death penalty for prison rape would not be in accord with strict constructionist constitutional interpretation.

You'd have to get the Supreme Court to change their mind first. They've long since ruled the death penalty unconstitutional for any crime short of murder.