In 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination Act created a commission to study the problem of prison rape and issue draft regulations to deal with it. The Justice Department would then have a year to review them and issue regulations. The commission issued its report in June 2009, but the Obama Justice Department is slow-walking its review and scaling back the commission’s recommendations.
I really do not understand it. Preventing brutality against prisoners would seem to be squarely within progressive ideology, so why is Eric Holder working against protecting prisoners? Why is President Obama letting him? This is not a rhetorical question; I wish I knew the answer. Are they responding to pressure from prison-guard unions?
One thing seems certain: of all the criticisms that can be leveled against progressive ideology, support for prison rape is not one of them, so they must be doing this for some political reason. I’ve written before that the Democratic party functions as an alliance of tribes, not as an ideological movement. This seems likely to be a prime example.
(Via Instapundit.)
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