We greatly appreciate the following materials provided by Joanne Belknap, TK Logan, Ph.D., Sue Osthoff, Danielle McGurrin and their colleagues...
What is apparent from the little scholarly or journalistic research conducted on rape in women’s prisons is that sexual abuse perpetrated by prison administrators and guards, much of it extremely violent and all of it inherently coercive, occurs far too commonly. Thus, while male prisoners are more likely to be raped by fellow prisoners than are female prisoners, female prisoners are more likely than their male counterparts to be raped by prison guards or administrators. A powerful documentation of this is a 1996 book by the Human Rights Watch Women’s Rights Project entitled All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons. This book describes not only violent rapes of incarcerated women by male guards but also the vulnerability of many incarcerated women to sexual “relationships” with guards (and other prison staff), which appear consensual at first. For example, the book describes how the sheer loneliness of prison life places women at risk of “falling for” an unprofessional and unethical guard who pursues romantic and sexual relationships.
Accounts of these sexually exploitative guards is similar to the research on lecherous college professors who develop reputations for “hitting on” female students and forming romantic and sexual relationships with them1. In both instances, the incarcerated women as well as the women college students realize too late the seriousness of the power difference and how these men have a cadre of women they have (ab)used similarly, often at the same time. To compound the trauma of these exploitative and abusive experiences, a study of sexual abuse of women in U.S. prisons found that the perpetrator himself, other guards, or the entire system frequently retaliated against the women who reported the abuses2. Moreover, women who became pregnant from sexual encounters with guards were sometimes forced to have abortions they did not want, one reporting being dragged through abortion protesters at an abortion clinic3. The “punishment” of the sexual abusers and exploiters in the prison system is similar to findings about sexual harassers: They were simply transferred to other (usually male) prisons4.
There have been other allegations of women prisoners being sexually assaulted and sexually harassed by male staff5 6. From May 22 to May 25, 2005, The Detroit News reported on an extensive investigation by journalists into the sexual abuse of women incarcerated in Michigan. The reporters, Melvin Claxton, Norman Sinclair, and Ronald J. Hansen7, read thousands of pages of prisoners’ statements from the Department of Corrections Internal Affairs and interviewed current and former prisoners and guards and national experts on the topic of the sexual abuse of women prisoners. The resulting newspaper stories in The Detroit News documented women who (1) experienced serious sexual assaults at the hands of guards, some of which resulted in pregnancies (and children), (2) struggled to file charges against sexually abusing officers that were ignored by the prison authorities, and (3) killed themselves after the continued sexual abuse that went unchecked. Coercive sex was also rampant where the guards demanded sex for perks. Despite the fact that female prisoners are far more likely to be sexually abused by male guards than male prisoners are to be abused by female guards, there is more sex integration of workers in women’s than men’s prisons8. This is due to the unfounded belief that women workers pose a security risk in men’s prisons.
Another point related to sexual abuse in prison is the different way that incarcerated men and women may experience cross-gender searches9. In a 1993 court case, Jordan v. Gardner (986 F2d. 1521 Ninth Circuit), the court “appropriately recognized that because of their histories of abuse, female prisoners are more likely to be psychologically harmed by cross-gender [body] searches in prison”10. That is, given the extraordinarily high incidence of abuse in incarcerated women’s lives, particularly sexual abuse perpetrated by males, having strip searches performed by males can be extremely traumatic. Farkas and Rand11 point out that cross-gender searches for survivors of these abuses are likely counter to any treatment that may be provided by the prison regarding healing from these abuses.
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Not part of my sentence: Violations of the human rights of women in custodyDeterring staff sexual assault of federal inmates (U.S. DOJ Inspector General)Sexual misconduct by correctional staff (U.S. GAO)Impunity: Sexual abuse in women’s prisons (2007) Buchanan: Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Vol. 42; 45-87Legal responses to sexual violence in custody: State criminal laws prohibiting staff sexual abuse of individuals under custodial supervision (2009) Smith & Yarussi: American Univ Washington College of Law, National Institute of Corrections Project on Addressing Prison Rape
