SCOTUS’s Grants Pass v. Johnson: Cruel and Unusual Punishment for Poverty

Asleep on the top bunk of a homeless youth shelter in Portland, Oregon, I woke gasping for air. I couldn’t move. Flailing, I tried to throw off the sheets binding me down in the darkness.

A figure loomed above me. Someone was holding me down, not something. Panicked, confused, and disoriented, I thought I was dreaming.

I kicked hard between their legs. They buckled in pain. My foot firmly planted on their torso, I sent them flying off the bunk bed. They fell with a thud. I held my breath, hoping the shelter staff hadn’t heard the noise. I didn’t want to get in trouble for fighting. My rapist crawled to their bed on the other side of the room.

I stared at her bed until morning, ready to pounce down if she tried to rape anyone else.

I didn’t return to the youth shelter the next night. I was going to sleep outside where it was safer — where I had more control of my surroundings. I worried that she would rape others with her dildo if I wasn’t there. But I couldn’t risk getting attacked again in my sleep.

Next month, the Supreme Court will hear the Grants Pass v. Johnson case that if upheld, would have punished me for sleeping outside after I was raped in that youth shelter in Oregon.