Urgent Action! Sign-On Letter from Stop Prisoner Rape – Signatures Needed by April 26

Dr. Pepper/ Seven UP, Inc. (“7 Up”) recently broadcast a seemingly light-hearted commercial on cable television, called Captive Audience. This commercial portrays the rape of people in prison as something to laugh about. Stop Prisoner Rape finds the trivialization of this serious human rights abuse alarming, yet unfortunately, all too common. SPR asks your organization to sign on to a letter that denounces the use of jokes about the rape of prisoners to sell soft drinks.

While we recognize that 7 Up has the right to air this commercial, we hope to persuade the company to voluntarily stop airing it and to simultaneuosly inform the public of the seriousness of prisoner rape. While often the subject of jokes, prisoner rape is actually a degrading form of abuse that destroys human dignity and causes serious physical and psychological harm.

Please join us in our appeal to senior-level 7 Up management, the Board of Directors, and the press by encouraging your organization to sign-on to the following letter denouncing the exploitation of prisoner rape to sell soft drinks.

Signatures must be received by April 26, 2002. SPR will send the letter and issue a press release on April 29, the day 7 Up broadens the commercial’s reach by airing it on both cable and network television. If you plan to sign-on, please send an email to lstemple@spr.org and include the name of the contact person at your organization.

*** To Dr. Pepper/ Seven UP, Inc.:

Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR), a human rights organization that seeks to end sexual violence against men, women, and youth in detention, and the [number of] other organizations that have signed this letter, request that you reconsider your decision to run a commercial that treats the rape of people in prison as something to laugh about.

Your Captive Audience commercial, which has previously run on cable television, was launched today on network television. The commercial portrays a 7 UP spokesperson handing out cans of 7 UP to prisoners behind bars. When he accidentally drops a can, he quips that he won’t pick it up, implying that he would risk being raped if he were to bend down. Similar humor is attempted later in the commercial by the depiction of two men on a bed in a cell, one of whom refuses to take his arm from around the other.

Men and women are routinely raped and sexually brutalized in prisons throughout the country. Considered by international legal bodies to be a form of torture, prisoner rape is a serious human rights abuse that derails justice and destroys human dignity.

Following an incident of rape, victims may experience vaginal or rectal bleeding (and other serious injuries in the case of violent attacks), insomnia, nausea, shock, disbelief, withdrawal, anger, shame, guilt, and humiliation. Gang rapes can be particularly brutal, leaving victims viciously beaten, and in rare cases, dead. For those who survive any rape in prison, long term consequences may include post traumatic stress disorder, rape trauma syndrome, ongoing fear, nightmares, flashbacks, self-hatred, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and suicide.

Moreover, HIV rates are eight to ten times as high inside of prison as outside. Non-violent offenders are among the most likely to be raped, and in the context of HIV/AIDS, this may amount to an un-adjudicated death sentence for a minor offence. In addition, upon release, victims may bring with them emotional scars and learned violent behavior that continue the cycle of harm.

Simply put, rape in prison isn't funny.

Nevertheless, this traumatic experience is portrayed as something humorous in your Captive Audience commercial. This light-hearted depiction allows the public to simultaneously acknowledge the existence of widespread sexual violence, while denying the serious, often life-long pain and suffering of the victims. Outside of the prison context, jokes about rape are not considered acceptable.

We previously contacted Michael Martin, Director of Corporate Communications, to explain the seriousness of prisoner rape and request that Dr. Pepper/ Seven UP, Inc. stop using jokes about prisoner rape to sell soft drinks. He stated that your company would continue to run the commercial, citing the commercial’s popularity during consumer tests prior to airing. Prisoner rape is commonly the butt of jokes, but by pandering to this insensitivity, your company is only perpetuating callousness regarding this horrific, widespread abuse.

Stop Prisoner Rape and the co-signing organizations feel that the torture of human beings should not be exploited to sell soft drinks. We have notified the press about our opposition to your ad campaign, and we urge you to reconsider it. We sincerely hope that you will remove the Captive Audience commercial from cable and network television.

Sincerely,

[list of organizations]