gAlienLifeform

In 2012 the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) took effect. Among other changes, we all have annual classification hearings in which we’re asked a handful of questions about how we identify and whether we’ve been sexually assaulted. Though I’ve been openly gay for a very long time now, each year during my PREA hearing I identify myself as heterosexual.

PREA sorts people into three categories: “predator,” “victim” and “neutral.” Someone who is heterosexual—on paper, at least—gets to be “neutral.” Whereas someone whose paperwork shows them to be anything other than heterosexual is much more likely to be classified as “victim,” even if they’ve never been assaulted.

Compared to heterosexual prisoners, LGBTQ+ folks are many times more likely to be assaulted—not just by other prisoners, but also by staff. Many who’ve been assaulted don’t report it, and so it’s a good thing that however you need to answer they take your word for it, even if there’s no record in the system. But a problem that arises with this system is that a “victim” and a “predator” can never be housed together. This probably sounds like a good thing, and in many cases it is. But labels can be misleading.

Many “violent sexual predators” are LGBTQ+ folks classified that way because they were sex workers living with HIV, or teenagers who’d had consensual sex with other teenagers. In my experience LGBTQ+ people in prison are just as often classified as “predator” as they are “victim.”

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Archived at https://archive.is/YGbj7

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240603120548/https://theintercept.com/2024/05/31/jail-construction-justice-architecture-firms/

... in late December, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to ask for greater assistance. Those conversations were “preliminary,” the officials said, and did not result in hard promises from either side.

In a press conference on Friday, López Obrador called on the U.S. to approve a plan that would deploy $20 billion to Latin American and Caribbean countries, suspend the U.S. blockade of Cuba, remove all sanctions against Venezuela and grant at least 10 million Hispanics living in the U.S. the right to remain and work legally.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240110130556/https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/biden-asks-mexico-help-stop-record-surge-migrants-rcna132711

The White House has signaled that it is open to several Republican proposals, according to Biden administration officials, lawmakers in both parties and people familiar with the matter.

According to people involved in the talks, Democrats have agreed in principle to raise the standard migrants must meet when they claim they need asylum in the United States because they fear persecution in their home countries.

The White House has also said it would consider a policy similar to the Trump-era emergency rule known as Title 42, which empowered border agents to rapidly expel migrants at the border, according to Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is involved in the talks.

The White House included some G.O.P. demands in the emergency funding request that Republicans blocked, such as a significant expansion of detention capacity. The bill dedicated more than $4 billion to the Department of Homeland Security to expand holding facilities at the border.

And the White House has considered the idea of reinstating a practice of detaining migrant families that cross the border together — another line item in the G.O.P.’s latest proposal.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231215130427/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/us/politics/congress-biden-border-ukraine.html

Starting in the late 1990s, the complaints by young girls incarcerated at Camp Scott began to pile up — all alleging similar sexual abuse by the same man: Thomas E. Jackson, then a deputy at the Santa Clarita juvenile camp.

Eventually, the complaints all stalled. The girls finished their sentences and left. Jackson stayed for decades.

It wasn’t until this fall that Jackson resigned from the Los Angeles County Probation Department, capping a 33-year career during which 20 women say he sexually abused them when they were girls. His last day was Sept. 28.

Ernest Walker, a longtime probation supervisor, resigned two days later, also after 33 years with the department. His departure would come nearly two decades after he was accused of having sex with a teenage girl he supervised.

Faced with roughly 1,500 plaintiffs accusing the county of tolerating unchecked sexual abuse at its juvenile facilities, the Probation Department has spent the last two years removing alleged sexual abusers from its ranks. Since early 2022, 23 probation staffers — including Walker and Jackson — have been placed on leave after accusations of sexual violence, according to figures provided by the county’s outside counsel.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231214131611/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-13/23-probation-officers-taken-off-job-amid-sex-abuse-allegations