![]() No manual, training, or camera will prevent an officer from whispering, “If you want to see your child this weekend, I want a blow job.” “Do you want that cushy job?” “Do you want that corner bed?” Do you want me to put money on your commissary account?” Whether it’s a threat or a bribe, incarcerated people cannot prove the conversation happened, even with cameras. ![]() But their solution is a repeat of the old one: it includes new and improved manuals, more training for officers, more supervision, cameras, and a redefinition of the problem. ![]() Since returning home, I’ve sat in meetings with well-meaning government officials and activists who want to end sexual violence. Unfortunately, government officials have been relying on strategies that fail to address the primary problem: the power dynamics between officers and incarcerated women make it nearly impossible to report abuse. Statistics vary widely, but a 2006 report by Stop Prisoner Rape estimates that as many as 1 in 4 women are victimized while incarcerated. Sexual violence toward incarcerated women is a problem at the federal, state, and local levels. But that night, I realized most of the male officers could, with the full knowledge of prison leadership, hold incarcerated women hostage to their sexual appetites without consequence.Īs many as 1 in 4 women are victimized while incarcerated.Īnd when I returned from prison and spoke with other formerly incarcerated women, I learned the problem wasn’t limited to my facility. With this history, I would have expected serious oversight by the region and the federal government to ensure enforcement of PREA. The remaining five were arrested and prosecuted. One officer, determined not to be arrested, shot and killed the agent. My bunkee informed me that, back in 2006, the prison was on lockdown for months when an FBI agent came to arrest six officers for sexual violence. This was hardly the first incident at the prison. ![]() As for the abusive officer, he was placed under investigation by the FBI and temporarily sent to work at the men’s side of the prison down the road. The following evening, a second female officer, unhappy that her fellow officer was in trouble, threatened to withhold from our unit the only two luxuries incarcerated women have in their sleeping units: television and microwave use. The next morning, all the women who had witnessed the incident were put into solitary confinement. But when the next officer to come on duty was told of what had happened, she ordered that the desk be wiped down and the office mopped-rather than closing the office as a crime scene. The resulting chatter kept the entire unit up for over an hour. The officer came in to fetch the woman after lights out, but in his rush to have sex, he forgot to lock the door separating the sleeping unit from his office.Ī half-dozen curious women left the unit to watch the officer have sex with the woman and ran back into the unit to tell everyone about it in graphic detail. You couldn’t walk far without seeing the words “ZERO TOLERANCE.”īut as subsequent events in the prison would demonstrate, the signage should have read, “ZERO ATTENTION TO PREA.” In one incident in April 2014, my entire unit, which comprised more than 100 women, awoke to the evening officer having sex with a woman from my unit. What’s more, signage all over the prison walls reminded us that officers are strictly forbidden from having sex with inmates, as mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). This treatment contrasted drastically with what was outlined as acceptable in the sexual abuse, harassment and violence orientation-presented by prison officers-that newly incarcerated women are obligated to attend. Instead, he sniffed them and said, “I wonder if she would be good in bed.” Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox At first I thought he had stopped to discipline me for washing my panties by hand instead of sending them to the laundry. When they stopped at mine, one officer picked up my panties that I had hung on a towel over the metal bars of my bunk bed. During evening rounds, two officers came by with flashlights, stopping at a number of beds. Within a few weeks, I was sexually harassed again by an officer. Annoyed, I said, “You know I am too old for this?” He replied, “I like older women.” It wasn’t long before I learned that he also had a liking for incarcerated Mexican women facing deportation. Soon into the interview, I noticed that the officer was peppering his intake questions with flirtatious and sexual comments. Shackled and exhausted after a long drive from Georgia to Florida, I had to do an intake interview with a correctional officer immediately upon my arrival. In 2013, at the age of 63, I entered a federal women’s prison for the second time.
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