Penal Reform and Gender Prisoners must only be subjected to personal physical searches when necessary and then as unobtrusively as possible. Searches by personnel of the opposite sex are controversial. 43 The CPT standards specify that: ‘Persons deprived of their liberty should only be searched by staff of the same gender and that any search which requires an inmate to undress should be conducted out of the sight of custodial staff of the opposite gender.’ The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1993 that female staff may frisk male prisoners and look into their cells without warning but did not allow male staff to frisk women prisoners.44 Female prisoners are likely to find strip searches particularly traumatic, and policies regarding stripsearching should be separately and carefully formulated as regards female prisoners.45 Strip-searches must never be imposed as punishment. Where the strip-searching of a woman is deemed justified in particular circumstances, male staff members should never be present (see Box 3). 4.5 Prevent and respond to gender-based violence in prison Prisons should be run according to the rule of law. Thus, staff should never assault or harass prisoners and have a duty to ensure that prisoners are safe and protected from violence inflicted by other prisoners. In many countries, prison staff are rarely prosecuted for abuses of the law. Whilst it is important to ensure that crimes against prisoners are dealt with through the justice system, preventive measures should also be in place. Such measures include: ■ ■ ■ Appropriate legislation (see Box 4) Well-trained and competent management Oversight of prisons by independent outside bodies Box 4 ■ ■ ■ ■ Effective complaints machinery Protocols for response and investigation (see Box 5) Staff training Medical services accountable to the health authorities rather than to the prison administration 4.6 Ensure access to health care for male and female prisoners Health care is a particularly important aspect of prison life. Prison populations everywhere contain an overrepresentation of people from the most marginalised groups in society, with poor health, chronic untreated conditions and mental health problems. Many of those who engage in activities with high health risks, such as injecting drugs and commercial sex work, end up in prison. Rates of hepatitis B and C are much higher in prison than outside.51 Rates of HIV infection in prison can be 75 times higher in prison than in the outside society.52 For example, while prisoners represent only 0.01% of the total Spanish population, they account for 7% of AIDS diagnoses.53 Women in prison come from backgrounds of violence and abuse in much higher proportions than male prisoners. Rates of mental illness are higher amongst female prisoners than amongst male prisoners. Children in prison often come from disturbed family backgrounds where abuse is common.54 Within prisons, health risks are high, including exposure to sexual and other forms of violence. ‘There are 22 of us in our cell, and two of my cell mates have juveniles as ‘wives’. They got them by bribing the Prison Officers at the main gate. These juveniles agreed to have sex with these men because they had no clothes and no blanket, and they were hungry. One day these boys started to cry and refused to have sex. The Legislation on prison rape in the United States A 2000 survey of inmates in seven US men’s prison facilities showed that 21% of the inmates had experienced at least one episode of pressured or forced sexual contact and at least 7% had been raped.47 In the US, an organisation called Stop Prisoner Rape has been campaigning for years against this abuse. The founder, Steve Donaldson, was himself gang-raped when he was held in a jail in Washington DC in 1973 for protesting against the US bombings in Cambodia. In 2003, 30 years later, the Prison Rape Elimination Act was signed into law. The law calls for the gathering of national statistics on rape in US prisons, the development of guidelines for states about how to deal with prisoner rape, the establishment of a review panel to hold annual hearings and the provision of grants to states to combat the problem. Steve Donaldson died in 1996. He had been infected with HIV as a result of having been raped in prison.48 An evaluation of the first three years after the Act became law shows considerable progress in work to reduce prison rape through: ■ Developing policies (rather than secrecy and denial) ■ Prevention (through more considered location of prisoners, less overcrowding and prisoner education) ■ Investigation and prosecution ■ Victim services ■ Staff training ■ Collaboration with non-prison agencies49 This demonstrates how determined campaigning over many years can bring gender-based abuse into the open after much denial, and how changes in the law can lead to practical measures to mitigate its frequency. 9