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Prison Rape: An Endless Epidemic?
No full textCongress passed the landmark Prison Rape Elimination Act (“PREA”) in 2003 with unanimous support from both the Senate and House of Representatives. After the rampant sexual violence occurring behind the closed doors of prisons and jails (much of which was perpetrated by the staff of these institutions) was brought to light by human rights organizations, news media, lawyers, and activists in the late 1990s, lawmakers crafted this unprecedented federal law to establish a zero-tolerance policy for what it described as an “invisible epidemic.” At the law’s twenty-year mark, justice-involved individuals are still being sexually victimized in carceral settings, day after day, frequently at the hands of state actors. As but one example, three women testified about how they were subject to repeated sexual abuse by the warden of a federal women’s prison in California. The warden also served as the facility’s PREA Coordinator, ironically meaning he trained prison staff on how to prevent sexual violence and educated inhabitants upon entry about how to report abuse they might endure. The abuse was so widely known that the prison was referred to as a “rape club.” This anecdote is supported by broader statistics that suggest prison rape has not abated, revealing serious shortcomings of PREA and providing persuasive fodder in support of the abolition of the carceral state. Despite labeling prison rape an epidemic, Congress did not actually create a corresponding comprehensive public health response to address the crisis. Nor did it create a human rights response, despite much of the human rights work that went into revealing the atrocities that were occurring in the nation’s carceral settings. So, what did PREA do? This Article offers a retrospective analysis of the past twenty years under the PREA-centered legislative regime and analyzes some of the law’s most significant successes and failures in light of the public health context in which Congress situated it. If indeed an epidemic, prison rape is a seemingly endless one whose responses and remedies require retooling. We query whether a human rights framework, layered together with a true public health response, might offer a way forward. There is a rich history of marrying public health and human rights to address an array of social issues, and we advocate for such a union here. This shift—reframing and reconceptualizing the response by further merging public health and human rights—is a critical step toward ensuring the eradication of sexual violence in carceral settings in the most timely and effective way possible. While we laud the work to abolish the carceral state for all its flaws—systemic racism, sexism, abuse, and beyond—we cannot abandon the individuals who are incarcerated today, forced to endure sexual violence at the hands of the state
The Public Duty Doctrine & State Governmental Tort Liability: A Brief History and a Solution for the Current Paradigm
No full textIn the early morning hours of Friday, September 2, 2022, a young woman named Eliza Fletcher was jogging down Central Avenue in Memphis, Tennessee when a man violently abducted her.2 Shortly after the abduction, the Memphis Police Department issued a city-wide watch for Mrs. Fletcher, volunteers searched wooded areas around town, and news outlets broadcasted the few known details of her abduction.3 Mrs. Fletcher disappeared near the University of Memphis Campus just a few hundred feet from a local private school, providing police with a cache of surveillance footage that helped them quickly pinpoint a suspect.4 On September 3, just thirty-six hours after Mrs. Fletcher’s abduction, police officers identified Cleotha Abston5 as the likely perpetrator after matching DNA on a pair of shoes recovered at the abduction site to Abston’s genetic information in the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (“CODIS”).6 The following day, while police continued to search for Mrs. Fletcher, local prosecutors charged Abston with especially aggravated kidnapping and tampering with evidence.7 Finally, on Monday, September 5, police discovered Mrs. Fletcher’s body at an abandoned house in South Memphis.8 Approximately one year before Abston killed Mrs. Fletcher, he kidnapped and raped a woman named Alicia Franklin.9 The Memphis Police Department (“MPD”) failed to adequately investigate Ms. Franklin’s accusations against Abston.10 Following Ms. Franklin’s rape, “and to [her] horror and resulting emotional distress, [Abston] [was] suspected of abducting and murdering . . . Mrs. Eliza Fletcher.”11It was not until Abston’s arrest in the Fletcher case that Memphis police tested Ms. Franklin’s rape kit.12 Six months after Mrs. Fletcher’s murder, Ms. Franklin sued the City of Memphis, claiming that MPD acted negligently when it failed to test her her rape kit or investigate Abston.13 Ms. Franklin’s complaint posited the following theory: had police officers taken her allegations seriously and tested her rape kit, law enforcement agencies would have matched Abston’s DNA information located in CODIS and arrested him before he could murder Eliza Fletcher.14 An alternative explanation is that Ms. Franklin’s rapekit met the fate of thousands of rape-kits in Tennessee that go untested on shelves for months or even years due to an extensive testing backlog.15 The trial court presiding over Ms. Franklin’s lawsuit dismissed her claims in July 2023, citing a common, nearly insurmountable bar to such claims—the public duty doctrine.1
Rowlandseck – Residence of R.J. Darnell
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1227/thumbnail.jp
Residence of W.P. Halliday
No full texthttps://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/picturing-memphis-images/1225/thumbnail.jp
Vintage Mug #25
No full textThis set of vintage ceramic mugs was on display in the L.L. Gobbel Library during February 2025 as the fourth entry in the library\u27s Collections Display Series. This series, managed by Campus Librarian Kelly Maust, features unique, original collections by University of Memphis Lambuth students, faculty, and staff. The project provides an opportunity to share our interests with each other and explore as a campus what a library collection could mean.
Mugs were lent to the library by Kelly Maust.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/vintage-mugs-feb-2025/1024/thumbnail.jp
Vintage Mug #13
No full textThis set of vintage ceramic mugs was on display in the L.L. Gobbel Library during February 2025 as the fourth entry in the library\u27s Collections Display Series. This series, managed by Campus Librarian Kelly Maust, features unique, original collections by University of Memphis Lambuth students, faculty, and staff. The project provides an opportunity to share our interests with each other and explore as a campus what a library collection could mean.
Mugs were lent to the library by Kelly Maust.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/vintage-mugs-feb-2025/1012/thumbnail.jp
Vintage Mug #10
No full textThis set of vintage ceramic mugs was on display in the L.L. Gobbel Library during February 2025 as the fourth entry in the library\u27s Collections Display Series. This series, managed by Campus Librarian Kelly Maust, features unique, original collections by University of Memphis Lambuth students, faculty, and staff. The project provides an opportunity to share our interests with each other and explore as a campus what a library collection could mean.
Mugs were lent to the library by Kelly Maust.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/vintage-mugs-feb-2025/1009/thumbnail.jp
Mushroom Book List: Adult Fiction
Get PDFA short bibliography of adult fiction works (including poetry collections, novels, novellas, graphic novels, and short story collections) where mushrooms and/or fungi are a theme. Includes works in the genres of fantasy, sci-fi, horror, weird fiction, Gothic novels, general fiction, and more
Annual Report, Associated Charities, Memphis, 1912
Get PDFFirst Annual Report of the Associated Charities, Memphis, TN. It covers the time period of 1911 December 22 - 1912 September 1.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-mss-famservicememphis1/1000/thumbnail.jp
Martin Luther King, Jr. bust and Sanitation Strike posters
No full textPhoto of the bust of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in McWherter Library along with two signs from the Sanitation Strike of 1968.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/item-of-the-month-2025-04/1004/thumbnail.jp