Any punishments penal authorities might inflict upon a criminal are weakened by being applied to a victim by the infinitely more powerful state. No matter how heinous the criminal, he always undergoes punishment at the hands of the state rather than at the hands of his peers. Thus, the criminal will see himself as 'being the victim,' and all his defense mechanisms - honed by years of denying to himself responsibility for his own criminality - will come into play. Homosexual prison rape is our ultimate social sanction against this mentality. Look how many men refuse to commit crimes because they are scared of being raped. It is degrading and emasculating, and it can be because it is an action clearly taken against the criminal by his social equals. Thus, prison rape is true punishment within the prison community.

Under the current system, no equivalent sanction applies for females. Due to increasing violence among young girls, an equivalent is sorely needed, for both its qualities as a deterrent (which protects those deterred from the negative effects of committing a crime) and as retribution (which allows the community catharsis.) This clearly must change.

As Brownmiller has so perceptively pointed out, rape is the primary mechanism through which men... perpetuate their dominance over women. (Against Our Will, 1975.) It is clear that rape, as a phenomenon, is necessarily perpetrated by men against victims of either gender. Penal authorities may not themselves participate in or directly condone rape if it is to have the desired impact, as a peer sanction. The only obvious solution is mixed-sex prisons in which, under controlled circumstances, male inmates are allowed free rein.

Surely, rape must be as awful an experience for a woman as it is for a man, yet we deny women the benefits of institutionalized prison rape! This failure of will on the part of our common polity has failed women, as the younger generation falls further and further into degradation and violence. Unless the punishment palliates the crime, we will never know justice. The only way for the American government to give women the full benefits of our penal system is for it to stop condescending to them. Women must be jailed and must suffer there just as do men, or society has failed them. To do less is to do violence to the natural rights of women everywhere.

The patriarchy is dead. Long live natural justice, and prison rape.