Religious groups push for action against prison rape
Six months before she was scheduled to be released on drug charges, Marilyn Shirley was raped in 2000 by a guard at the Texas prison where she was serving time. "I am still haunted by the words he whispered in my ear," Shirley recently recounted. "Do you think you're the only one?" her attacker asked her.
A wide spectrum of religious leaders and civil rights advocates say Shirley is far from being the only one and are pressing the Department of Justice to implement national standards to help prevent an estimated 60,000 cases of prison rape each year.
"What we are witnessing is justice denied," said Tim Goeglein, vice president of external relations at Focus on the Family and one of the signers of a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. Other signers included representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals and Sojourners, as well as the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigrant Justice Center.
