Teenage Pot Student Raped In Florida Jail

A 19 year old college student jailed for minor marijuana offences was brutally raped after being locked up alone with a 35 year old sex offender, the Gainsville Sun reported this week. The youth had been sentenced to serve four weekends in the Alachua County Jail, Florida and was attacked on his very first night in the cells.

The paper suggested over-crowding at the jail had been a factor behind the attack, though Alachua's County Sheriff said no other sexual batteries had been reported at the heavily over-crowded local jail in recent times.

According to human rights group Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR), prison over-crowding is a key factor behind the 'astonishing rates of abuse' in the overall system, uncovered in a recent study of four mid Western prisons.The study found that 20% of inmates reported they'd been 'pressured or forced into sex', suggesting up to 2million of the 10million people passing through America's Gulag-style system each year are attacked. Presciently, SPR suggested certain categories of prisoner are most at risk.

"Though anyone can become a victim, those who tend to be targeted for male prisoner-on-prisoner rape include those who are younger, smaller, and gay (or possess feminine traits)," said SPR.

"Many are first-time or non-violent offenders in the early part of their sentences who are unable to defend themselves or who lack the protection that comes with gang membership."

So Solid Crew member Shane Neil recently served 4 months in Britain's increasingly overcrowded prison system before being exonerated of gun and drug charges, and admitted last week that he'd been terrified of many of his fellow inmates.

"They would put you in a cell with anyone- a murderer, a rapist, a paedophile, any cell you went to, you would wonder what the man was in for," he told the Standard.

"You can't sleep because you don't know what's going to happen. If your bed moved slightly in the night, you'd jump up in case they were attacking you. You sleep in fear."

No Escape: Male Rape in US Prisons
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