Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing.
—
Adam Gopnik - “The Caging of America”
I am often ambivalent about The New Yorker. It seems fairly hawkish for a progressive magazine, and it often has no idea of its strengths, as indicated by about half of its cartoons. But this long piece, about prisons, is a must-read and restored some faith in political journalism.
(Source: standardreview)
