The Response of the State Governments
Of the correctional systems that we investigated, only those in Georgia and the District of Columbia have made visible and significant efforts to address the problem of custodial sexual misconduct. In both cases, these actions resulted from class action suits filed against the respective departments of corrections following long histories of unrecognized and unremedied custodial sexual misconduct. Corrections officers in both systems were found to have engaged in rape, sexual assault, inappropriate viewing and verbal degradation of female prisoners in their custody.91 The two correctional systems were found to have failed consistently to train officers and prisoners to identify and avoid such misconduct. Both state systems failed to pursue complaints of sexual misconduct and to ensure that officers who engaged in such abuse were disciplined and, where appropriate, prosecuted.
Subsequent to the class action suits, both correctional systems have begun to take long overdue remedial measures and to undertake a number of potentially important reforms. For example, Georgia created and hired investigators for a new investigative procedure to monitor compliance with the state's criminal law ban on sexual contact between corrections staff and prisoners.92 Pursuant to a court order, the District of Columbia Department of Corrections wrote and instituted a policy, which went into effect on May 15, 1995, prohibiting any sexual contact with prisoners by any employee or agent of the department.93 However, most departments of corrections that we investigated have taken no similarly notable remedial or preventative actions to address custodial sexual misconduct in their facilities. Some states prefer to deny that the problem exists at all. The state of Michigan, for example, continues to deny that it has a sexual misconduct problem and to state publicly that it has "zero tolerance" for such abuse,94 despite two state-sponsored investigations indicating custodial sexual misconduct in its women's facilities and a 1995 United States Department of Justice determination that echoed these findings.95
No state that we visited currently has in place the requisite combination of prison rules and procedures and criminal law and practice to combat custodial sexual misconduct in women's prisons. In fact, rather than working to expose and address custodial sexual misconduct, correctional systems often contribute to its perpetuation. They fail not only to put in place adequate prison rules or criminal laws to prohibit such abuse (or do not enforce such provisions where they already exist), but also to establish procedures whereby abuse can be reported, investigated and punished without the complainants fearing retaliation and, in some cases, undue punishment.
91 Cason v. Seckinger, Civil Action No. 84-313-1-MAC (Georgia), Women Prisoners of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections v. District of Columbia, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19222 (District of District of Columbia, December 13, 1994).
92 Georgia Department of Corrections Standard Operating Procedures, "Investigations of Allegations of Sexual Contact, Sexual Abuse and Sexual Harassment," November 9, 1994, draft.
93 District of Columbia Department of Corrections, "Sexual Misconduct Against Inmates," Department Order 3350.2A, May 15, 1995.
94 Press Release, Michigan Department of Corrections, January 7, 1993.
95 The DOJ found "that the sexual abuse of women prisoners by guards, including rapes, the lack of adequate medical care, including mental health services, grossly deficient sanitation, crowding and other threats to the physical safety and well-being of prisoners violates their constitutional rights." Letter from Deval Patrick, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, to John Engler, governor, State of Michigan, March 27, 1995.
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