No tolerance for this abuse

It has long been the shameful half-secret of imprisonment:

Rape is alarmingly common.

Now comes a new national effort to understand and correct such abuse.

Some 60,000 inmates are estimated to be sexually abused each year.

The new study puts some details to that estimate.

What we instinctively knew, the study confirms: The most vulnerable are gay, female, young or short.

Inmates in jails reported fewer rapes than those in prison.

When rapes are reported, the reports sometimes are not taken seriously.

More instances of abuse are reported as being committed by staff than by inmates.

Some jails and prisons show higher rates of reports than others.

It is good that these have been identified. Here is where improvements can most profitably be gained.

Ten facilities were revealed to have unusually high rates of reported rape — from 9 percent to nearly 16 percent of inmates.

Think of that: nearly 16 percent. The figure is chilling.

The typical rate is 4.5 percent annually — still too high, but nowhere near as pervasive as this.

The National Prison Rape Elimina-tion Commission, a bipartisan panel that spent five years on its study, says that the incidence of prison rape can be improved by a number of actions, including:

Adoption of zero tolerance policies.

Better staff training.

Internal monitoring such as with cameras.

Internal review boards.

Improved screening to identify vulnerable prisoners.

Such proposals are being sent to the U.S. attorney general’s office. Officials there will have a year to finalize federal standards.

Then states that fail to implement steps to meet those standards may see cuts in fiscal aid from Washington.

We dislike the strings-attached methods that Washington uses to call states to heel and to enforce national standards, some of which can be downright tyrannical (think No Child Left Behind).

But we strongly support action to improve staff integrity and reduce the incidence of rape.

As one victim who has been raped by a guard testified to the commission, “Rape must never be part of the penalty” imposed by sentencing.

Legitimate punishment is one thing — sexual abuse is quite another and should not, must not be tolerated.