Double jeopardy; thousands of crimes go unreported because they happen behind prison bars. Why?

JOHN GEOGHAN ACHIEVED IN DEATH WHAT HAD BECOME virtually impossible for him in life: He managed to elicit sympathy even from among the many he had victimized during his wretched tour of duty as a Catholic priest.

As a child molester, he resided among the lowest of the low within the prison dystopia, among the most despised and the most vulnerable. His murder highlights a dirty little not-so-secret of the American penal system: Men and women incarcerated in the United States often pay for their crimes with more than just their time and freedom. The New York Times described Geoghan's death as "eminently preventable," but to people aware of conditions within America's prison system such an attack seemed less preventable than inevitable.

Thousands of violent assaults take place each year behind U.S. prison walls. Most go unrecorded. A recent study of prisons in four Midwestern states found that approximately one in five male inmates report a pressured or forced sexual incident while incarcerated; about one in 10 report that they had been raped.

Prison administrators and guards have witnessed the violence--or at least its results--for decades, the public and politicians are aware of it, criminologists warn about it, and the prison shower rape has even been mainstreamed as a school-yard joke, yet the problem of prison violence persists.

Why?

The only rational answer is that we want it to. Americans widely accept that such assaults are part of the package of punishment that people convicted of crime in the United States "deserve." But do we really believe that incarcerated juveniles, immigrant detainees, and the vast majority of all other people serving short terms for nonviolent offenses really deserve to endure regular physical and sexual assaults?

We've allowed decades of a get-tough-on-crime mentality to translate into simply a get-tough-on-criminals reality. Prisons that are little better than violence-ridden holding pens of the despised--with little to no opportunity for self-advancement, rehabilitation, yes, even penance and redemption--have become the norm in our sprawling system, currently "home" to more than 2 million of our fellow citizens, one out of every 140 of us.

Our indifference to prison violence is not without its social costs. Prison rapes and assaults lead to injury and psychological trauma, interracial tension, increased transmission of HIV and other diseases, more violence against prison staff, higher rates of recidivism, and more prison homicides, suicides, and riots. There is another relevant issue worth considering: 95 percent of the people in U.S. prisons, including the most brutalized, will some day walk the streets among the general population again.

In the completion of an unacknowledged cycle of violence that spins in some rotten subterranean corner of the American psyche, Geoghan's death may appear a kind of justice. To their credit, most of his survivors found it far from that. Whether or not they still call themselves Catholic, these men feel a different cultural pull, one that says no person, however evil his deeds, is beyond redemption. The appalling Geoghan should have spent the time he had left in penance and meditation--seeking whatever shot he had at redemption--not in fear for his life.

WITH THE HIGHEST PER CAPITA RATE OF INCARCERATION in the world, the U.S. has assumed a massive responsibility for the maintenance of a vast prison system. Is it ready now to assume the responsibility to protect the people it locks away within that system? A new federal law promises to treat prison violence with the seriousness it deserves by calling for better record keeping of prison assaults and new programs aimed at reducing violence behind bars. We can do more.

One of the corporal works of mercy all Catholics are called to make in their lifetimes is "visit the prisoner." Perhaps supporting efforts to end violence in our prisons and jails is one way to fulfill this spiritual requirement.

If you can't quite bring yourself to "visit the prisoner" because of the wretched end of the likes of a John Geoghan, do it in memory of one who also once stood alone and too-vulnerable among the despised and forgotten in prison. USC 

By KEVIN CLARKE, contributing editor to U.S. CATHOLIC and managing editor of online products at Claretian Publications in Chicago.