Since 1990 numerous cases have been brought in Michigan state and federal courts alleging sexual abuse in the state's prisons. The abuse documented by Human Rights Watch and the U.S. Department of Justice includes rape, sexual abuse and assault, criminal sexual contact, verbal degradation, and privacy violations. Many of the women who have alleged the sexual abuse and have been either witnesses in criminal prosecutions or plaintiffs in civil suits report having suffered some form of retaliation by prison guards. The most common form reported is verbal harassment, but many women reported being threatened with physical or sexual abuse, subjected to abusivepat-frisks, and written up for rules violations they did not commit. Moreover, a select few appear to have been targeted for ongoing, relentless, and systematic retaliation, including allegedly being set up by prison guards. All levels of the Michigan Department of Corrections are implicated in these retaliatory campaigns: the guards who carry out the individual acts of retaliation, the wardens who look the other way, and the corrections department officials who have, through their inaction, created a climate of impunity.

Although it is always difficult to understand why one person is targeted while another apparently similarly situated person appears to survive relatively unscathed, the consensus among advocates and fellow inmates is that the most vicious retaliation is aimed at the women who are perceived as articulate, strong, even charismatic leaders within the inmate population or women who have successfully challenged the abuse-particularly if their challenge has resulted in a guard's losing his job. By targeting inmates who are perceived as strong, the Michigan Department of Corrections sets an example of what will happen to a woman if she dares to report abuse. By targeting inmates who have successfully fought back against the abuse, the corrections department sends a message that even if an inmate is successful in court, she is not protected within the walls of the prison.

The Michigan Department of Corrections is being sued by a class of women plaintiffs for sexual assaults, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and inappropriate visual surveillance within its two corrections facilities for women.67 Corrections department officials have consistently denied that such abuse is a problem within the prisons despite well-supported evidence to the contrary. John Engler, governor of Michigan, in a letter refusing to allow a U.N. human rights monitor access to the prisons, called the lawsuit "baseless" and accused the monitor of being an "unwitting tool in the Justice Department's agenda to discredit the State of Michigan."68 Human Rights Watch continues to receive reports of sexual abuse from Michigan inmates and, as recently as January 1998, a Michigan corrections officer who was assigned to the Scott facility was found guilty of the crime of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree.

The continuing reports of sexual abuse and retaliation since the release of All Too Familiar and the decision of the U.S. Department of Justice to join the class action suit against the state raise serious concerns that the Michigan Department of Corrections, rather than addressing the need to prevent sexual abuse of female inmates, has concentrated its energies on blanket denials of the allegations. These denials create an atmosphere hostile to the women who assert their right not to be subjected to sexual abuse by guards and allow the abuse to continue with impunity.

There are approximately thirty named plaintiffs in the current class action suit, including formerly incarcerated women, and approximately twenty corrections officers named as defendants. We interviewed five named plaintiffs in the ongoing class action suit who remain incarcerated and all of whom claim to have been victims of a systematic campaign of retaliation as a result of their participation in the suit. Furthermore, we collected information from several women who chose not to report abuse because of their fear of retaliation.

Four of the five women we interviewed reported having been raped by guards. The fifth woman had a consensual relationship with a guard who subsequently became abusive when she tried to end the relationship. Three of the women have minor children. The women are serving time for various crimes ranging from minor drug possession charges to murder. Regardless of the nature of the crimes these or any other incarcerated women committed, sexual violence against female inmates is never acceptable.

Stacy Barker69

Stacy Barker entered the prison system with a life sentence in 1987. Barker is an articulate, intelligent woman who has fiercely defended her rights within the system. She has been a plaintiff in several civil and class action suits against the corrections department, including the ongoing Nunn suit, a private civil action, and a class action suit challenging disparate services for women inmates.70 Barker believes that she has been targeted for retaliation because she is outspoken and because she was successful in a civil suit against the Michigan Department of Corrections from which she received a substantial monetary settlement based on her allegations that she was sexually assaulted by a corrections officer over a period of a year and a half.71 Barker reports that the retaliation began shortly after her civil suit was settled and the Nunn suit was filed in June 1995. Initially, the retaliation took the form of verbal harassment. Over time, however, the retaliation has intensified. Barker claims to have been set up by corrections officers, denied due process, threatened with physical harm, and denied all visitation privileges for the remaining years of her life sentence.

At the time the settlement in the civil suit was reached, Barker was designated as a Level 1 security inmate with zero points for unfavorable behavior, the lowest security rating possible.72 She had spent no time in punitive segregation since 1990 and was pursuing a B.A. in behavioral sciences. Barker, who has been incarcerated since 1987, had never tested positive for any banned substance even though she, like all the inmates, was subjected to random drug testing throughout her incarceration. The only disciplinary citation or "ticket" she had received for controlled substances prior to October 1995 was a ticket for having over-the-counter pain reliever beyond the expiration date.

Beginning in September 1995, Barker reports guards began calling her a "set-up queen" who was "always suing the department," marking the beginning of a campaign of harassment against her by prison staff. Thus began a series of searches of Barker's cell and belongings. On each occasion, guards found contraband, ranging from a razor deemed a weapon to bits of a green leafy substance identified by the corrections department as marijuana. Over an eight-month period, Barker was found guilty on three of four substance abuse tickets issued.73 This pattern of alleged substance abuse stands in stark contrast to her prior record of eight years of random drug tests and searches during which she only received one substance abuse ticket for possession of expired over-the-counter pain reliever. All the citations occurred in the eight months immediately after the adoption by the Michigan Department of Corrections of a policy of punishing inmates with repeated substance abuse violations by banning all visitation privileges, including visitation with family members, for the duration of their sentences. Because Barker is serving a life sentence, this ban is effectively a life ban on visitation.

Barker denies using drugs and repeatedly challenged the corrections department to allow her, at her own expense, to submit a hair sample for confirmatory testing and to take a lie detector test. Barker also challenged the tickets, arguing that the guards repeatedly ignored procedures designed to ensure that evidence cannot be tamperedwith. Not only were these requests for additional tests denied, even though they are permissible under the Michigan Department of Corrections regulations, and challenges to procedural violations dismissed, but also during this time, Barker was arraigned for possession of 0.06 grams of marijuana in the Plymouth District Court based on a major misconduct ticket issued on October 12, 1995. According to Barker's criminal defense attorney, Stuart Friedman, the presiding judge expressed consternation that this case was being prosecuted given the minuscule quantity of marijuana allegedly possessed by Barker. After Friedman filed for discovery, the state entered into a negotiated settlement in which the charges were dismissed and the state agreed to pay court costs. Friedman acknowledged that criminal prosecution of inmates for drug possession varies from county to county and prison to prison but asserted that prosecuting Barker was a misuse of prosecutorial resources and a result of retaliation for her having won a civil suit. "Guards are going to retaliate against you if you win a legal case. Because of Stacy, a guard lost his job. That has an impact on guards," said Friedman.74 According to Friedman, documents released by the Michigan Department of Corrections in response to discovery requests revealed that Barker's prosecution was indeed unusual. The documents indicate that at least nine other female inmates were ticketed at the same time as Barker for possession of larger quantities of drugs or with possession of more serious drugs, but none of these women was subjected to criminal prosecution.75 Furthermore, as Barker is serving a life sentence without parole, even a finding of guilt would serve no purpose because her sentence cannot be increased.

As a result of these various misconduct tickets and other allegations, including being issued a major misconduct ticket for arranging a paid hit on a prison official (a charge for which no hearing was ever held), Barker spent a total of 275 days in punitive segregation between October 1995 and August 1996. While housed in segregation as a result of these charges, Barker reports that she was threatened by a corrections officer who warned her against testifying in the class action suit pending against the Michigan Department of Corrections. Women held in punitive segregation are kept in their cells for twenty-three hours a day; they are not allowed to wear their own clothes or have personal possessions with them. Visitation is restricted and, when permitted, is by appointment only. Women in segregation are not allowed to use the phone. They are allowed to shower only three times a week. Women who are working or in school are forced to give up their jobs or studies.

As of June 1996, Barker had acquired three substance abuse tickets. Her security level had jumped from one to four, and she had gone from having zero to fifteen points for unfavorable behavior, all within a nine-month period. In October 1996, the Michigan Department of Corrections placed Barker on a permanent visitation ban, one of the most severe punishments administered. As of July 20, 1997, the corrections department had placed seven other women inmates on permanent visitation bans as a direct result of guilty findings for tickets issued for substance abuse. However, each of these women had had at least four drug charges before being placed on the permanent visitation ban.76

The degree to which guards and the Michigan Department of Corrections feel free to violate basic procedures that are designed to protect inmates from being erroneously punished was demonstrated by Barker's experience in February 1997, when she was subjected to a urine test. Barker remembers that Corrections Officer Adams collected the sample on February 18 at 3:50 p.m. Barker filed a grievance alleging that Adams did not follow the proper procedure and that the specimen bottle was taken out of Barker's sight before it was sealed-a violation of the Michigan Department of Corrections regulations. Adams acknowledges collecting the urine sample but denies violating the chain of custody protocol. However, a copy of the chain of custody for the drug analysis form reflectsthat the urine sample was collected on February 4, 1997, at 9:32 p.m. and was signed by a person named Miller. Barker has received no explanation for the discrepancy between the date, time, and name of the collector noted on the chain of custody paper and the statements made by Adams, even though the corrections department issued a fourth substance abuse ticket based on that urine sample. No hearing was held on that ticket until June 1998, nearly sixteen months after the date it was issued, and Barker was found guilty. The Michigan Department of Corrections procedures provide that tickets must be heard within fourteen days or be dismissed.77 Again, Barker did not receive any explanation of why a major substance abuse misconduct ticket was held for sixteen months. One serious ramification of delaying the hearing for sixteen months was that Barker's permanent visitation ban continued long after she was eligible to petition to have her visitation rights restored.78 For Barker, who has a young child, the permanent visitation ban is particularly painful.

Barker's problems intensified when, in January 1997, she alleges Corrections Officer Portman, a defendant in the Nunn suit, began sexually assaulting her. Portman allegedly threatened to make trouble for Barker if she testified against him in the lawsuit. Among other things, Barker reports that Portman threatened to send her back to segregation. Portman also pointed out that if Barker did report the abuse it would be his word against hers. Finally, Portman told Barker that Inspector Howard was "out to get her," because he was friends with the correction officer who had been accused of sexual assault by Barker in 1990, subsequently found guilty, and lost his job. When Portman began sexually abusing Barker, she recalls feeling defeated and in shock that it could happen again. Barker decided not to report the assaults, despite being ashamed of her fear of reporting the abuse. The abuse came to light when another inmate saw Portman leaving Barker's cell one night and reported this to her lawyer. Barker finally reported the abuse herself to a prison psychiatrist on February 27, 1997. She was taken immediately to segregation and then transferred to the Huron Valley Center, a psychiatric hospital for inmates, on February 28, 1997. Unfortunately, Barker learned that her reputation as a "set up queen" had preceded her to Huron Valley. Barker reported being verbally harassed by attendants at the hospital facility, including one male staffer who told her repeatedly that he would "bring her down a few rungs."

On October 19, 1997, Barker attempted suicide. She told Human Rights Watch that when she was found, she was stripped naked by three male guards, placed in five-point restraints on a bed with no blanket, and held for nine hours. Once she was taken out of the restraints, she was placed on a suicide watch. Although prison regulations permit twenty-four-hour surveillance by a staff person who is never more than four feet away for three to five days, Barker reported being monitored twenty-four hours a day for twenty-nine days. Despite being on a suicide watch, she received no counseling or psychiatric evaluation during this period. One of her monitors was the employee who kept telling her that he would "bring her down a few rungs."

On February 3, 1998, Barker was transferred from the Huron Valley Center to the Florence Crane Facility. She was assigned to a housing unit in which the residential unit officer is a defendant in the Nunn lawsuit. Under oath, Deputy Warden Linda Gutierrez testified that Warden Sally Langley specifically decided to transfer Barker to the housing unit where the defendant worked. The deputy warden also testified that the warden virtually never makes housing placement decisions but had made an exception in Barker's case.79

Barker believes that she is being punished for her participation in previous and ongoing law suits. Others concur. A former female corrections officer who worked at the Scott facility when Barker was there reports that she often heard fellow guards talking about punishing Barker. She also explained that it would be easy for a guard to set up an inmate for substance abuse tickets and that the abusive guards protect each other from getting caught when they violate prison regulations.80

Tanika Lynch81

Tanika Lynch entered the prison system in October 1996 with a life sentence. A young, articulate, intelligent woman, Lynch was very assertive about her rights from the moment she entered the system. She successfully complained of sexual abuse by a corrections officer who was subsequently found guilty of criminal sexual conduct. Lynch was added as a plaintiff in the Nunn suit after she complained of retaliatory abuse by the corrections officer. She believes she has been targeted for retaliation because the officer she accused of sexual abuse lost his job as a result of being found guilty.

Although Lynch at first willingly participated in a sexual relationship with Corrections Officer Philip Lewis, her experience demonstrates that the power guards have over inmates puts the women at risk of abuse and retaliation should they decide to end the relationship. In late 1996, Lynch offered to accompany a wheelchair-bound inmate to the health care services office. While she was waiting to escort the woman back to her cell, Lynch and Lewis struck up a conversation. After that encounter, Lewis began pressuring Lynch to have a sexual relationship with him, but even though she was interested, it was difficult for them to get time alone. He gave her a condom-contraband under prison regulations-and asked her to keep it for him until they could use it. He told her what clothes to wear and would instruct her to show him different parts of her body.

Not only did Lewis put Lynch at risk by giving her contraband to keep for him, but as other prison staff became aware of the relationship, it was Lynch, not Lewis, who was blamed. In fact, when Lynch's supervisor at the store where she worked in the prison, Mr. Little, became aware of the relationship between Lynch and Lewis, Little told Lynch that if the overfamiliarity between her and Lewis continued, she would be fired.

Lynch immediately informed Lewis of Little's reprimand. Lewis responded by calling her a bitch and accusing her of being sexually involved with Little. The verbal hostility increased with Lewis' calling Lynch's daughter a bastard and offering to read the definition of bastard to her from a dictionary. Lewis threatened Lynch with physical harm and took advantage of routine pat-frisks to sexually abuse her. Initially Lynch tried to protect Lewis from any problems even though she was afraid of his escalating hostility. As the harassment increased, Lynch talked about Lewis's behavior to other women prisoners, to Little, and to officers whom she trusted. She also talked to Lewis and told him if he did not stop abusing her that she would be forced to report him. He reportedly responded, "Who do you think they're gonna believe? I'm the officer. You're just an inmate bitch."

On July 8, 1997, Lynch finally reported the abuse by Lewis. The next day, Lewis issued Lynch a major misconduct ticket for stealing from the prison store. In the first seven months of 1997, Lynch had received four misconduct tickets. In the four months after she reported the sexual abuse by Lewis, she received twenty-five tickets.82 On September 23, 1997, Lynch asked the residential unit officer (RUO) permission to go to the bathroom. He denied her permission and reportedly said, "Bitches like you get found in ditches." Lynch reports that otherofficers have taunted her as they issued her tickets and told her if she does not like, it she should call on her friends in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Lynch filed a grievance citing the Resident Unit Officer that was dismissed as frivolous.

Initially, other guards appeared to rally around Lewis. Theron F. Atkinson, the person charged with reviewing grievances filed by the inmates, issued a major misconduct ticket to Lynch alleging that she had filed a frivolous grievance. In his deposition taken for the Nunn suit, Atkinson admitted that it was extremely rare for him to issue such a ticket.83 Atkinson also admitted that he told several co-workers that he thought Lynch was a liar.84 Atkinson took time off work to attend Lewis's preliminary examination, where he told Lewis not to worry because "I'm behind you."85 Under oath, Corrections Officer Julie Kennedy-Carpenter said that originally she did not believe Lynch's accusation against Lewis. However, after a couple of other inmates told her that Lewis had behaved in a similar manner toward them, she found the report more credible. Kennedy-Carpenter also reported that Lynch was being harassed by other officers: "I know a lot of officers have talked about making her pay."86

On January 27, 1998, Lewis was found guilty of criminal sexual conduct in the fourth degree. Lynch had planned to give a victim impact statement at the sentencing. However, before sentencing, two guards who work with Lewis approached Lynch and made thinly veiled threats against her family. Lynch decided not to speak at the sentencing out of fear that something might happen to her child. Lewis was sentenced to two years' probation. Lynch reports that she is still subject to intense verbal harassment by guards.

Ronesha Williams87

Ronesha Williams entered the Michigan Department of Corrections system in December 1996 for a one- to three-year sentence. A young, reserved woman who has done her best not to make waves while incarcerated, Williams stepped forward to report sexual abuse when Justice Department investigators visited Scott. The staff at Scott were immediately made aware of her charge, and from that moment on, Williams reports being subjected to unrelenting harassment and retaliation. As a direct result of the retaliation, Williams's release into a community-based program was delayed.

Williams reported that she was raped in May 1997 by a guard at Scott but did not report the assault until July 1997 during a Department of Justice investigation. Justice Department investigators made no attempt to protect her identity until she could be transferred to another facility for safety. Several weeks later, Williams was transferred from Scott to the Crane facility where she heard prison officials explaining her transfer by saying, "They don't want her at Scott." Williams also heard the response of the guards: "We don't want her here."

A Michigan Department of Corrections official explained to Williams that she was being transferred to protect her from retaliation after reporting the alleged rape to the Department of Justice, yet she detailed to Human Rights Watch being subjected to intense retaliation upon her arrival at Crane. During her eight months at Scott, Williams received three major misconduct tickets and no minor misconduct citations. However, within a four-month period at Crane from September 23, 1997, through January 26, 1998, Williams received nine major misconduct tickets. Four of those tickets were subsequently dismissed, but the remaining five were all for behaviors for whichshe claims other inmates would not have been cited. For example, on September 23, 1997, Williams was assigned to work in the food service section. When she showed up for work she was written up for coming to breakfast early, even though that was part of the job requirement.

In January 1988, Williams was moved to a housing unit within Crane in which the resident unit officer, Hauk, is a defendant in the Nunn suit. In February 1998 alone, Hauk issued four minor misconduct tickets to Williams. As a consequence of the misconduct tickets, Williams was not paroled and transferred to the community release center in May 1998 as she had anticipated.

Williams reported that the retaliation also took the form of excessive pat-frisks. As documented in All Too Familiar, abusive guards use pat-frisks to humiliate and inflict pain upon female prisoners. Prior to reporting the rape to the Department of Justice, Williams estimated that she was subjected to one pat-frisk a week. After the transfer to Crane, she noticed a marked increase in the number of pat-frisks After her transfer to Hauk's unit, Williams reports that she was pat-frisked eighty-eight times in the month of February alone, forty-nine times by Hauk. Williams also reports that the pat-frisks were often accompanied by threatening comments. One officer who repeatedly pat-frisked Williams told her it was "to teach her to keep her mouth shut." In January 1998, another guard told Williams that he knew she was keeping a log of the pat-frisks and informed her that his name "better not show up in relation to the law suit."

Williams has asked to be transferred from the housing unit where Hauk is assigned. Her requests for a transfer have gone unanswered. She also said that if she had had any idea how difficult her life would be after reporting the rape to the Justice Department investigators, she would never have come forward, and she believes that she would now be out on parole.

Jane Doe 188

Women who try to maintain a low profile even as they search for ways to protect themselves from being sexual harassed and abused can suffer severe consequences if their attempts to deal with the abuse are exposed. Jane Doe 1 alleges that in July 1997 a corrections officer exposed himself to her and asked her explicit sexual questions. After confiding in another inmate, she decided to speak to the chaplain about the sexual abuse. The chaplain subsequently passed on the information to the prison authorities. After an investigation and a hearing in which the hearing officer apparently relied upon confidential witnesses and documents to which Jane Doe 1 was never privy, the charge against the officer was dismissed, and she was issued a major misconduct ticket for interference with the administration of rules by making a false charge against a corrections officer. She was found guilty of the charge and punished, thereby losing her release date. She appealed the guilty finding and asked for a re-hearing. Her request was denied.

Jane Doe 1, who had been reluctant to speak of the allegations and who sought advice from the prison chaplain who then made a unilateral decision to report the conduct, believes that she is being punished for reporting the sexual abuse. She further feels that she would never step forward with another accusation under any circumstances because she does not believe she will be given a fair opportunity to be heard but instead will be punished.

Jackie Myrick89

Jackie Myrick entered the Scott facility in April 1995. A quiet, nervous woman with a long history of emotional problems stemming from various forms of abuse, Myrick believes she has been held responsible by manycorrections officers for the suicide of a guard who she reported raped her when she was serving time for a prior conviction at Crane.

When Myrick was sentenced to prison again, the judgment sentence of the court specifically recommended that Myrick be placed in a local facility or even in a federal facility to guarantee her safety. That recommendation was ignored by the Michigan Department of Corrections. As soon as she entered Scott, she was subjected to verbal harassments and threats by guards who blamed her for the officer's death. The harassment escalated, and she was physically assaulted and told not to cooperate with the Department of Justice investigation. Myrick alleges that one of the defendants in the Nunn suit was harassing and assaulting her. As a result of the threats, Myrick attempted suicide in February 1997. She was placed in segregation. However, Myrick was extremely fearful because she had been raped before while in protective custody. Myrick, who has been diagnosed with an adjustment disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder, had a psychotic episode while in segregation during which she reports that she had visual and auditory hallucinations of the officer who raped her. On February 11, 1997, she was transferred to the Huron Valley Center for treatment.

In April 1997 Huron Valley Center officials decided to send Myrick back to Scott, but she became so distraught at the idea of returning that they never executed the transfer. In May 1997 the Michigan Department of Corrections agreed to provide Myrick's lawyer seventy-two-hour notice of any plans to transfer her from Huron Valley. However, in a discharge summary signed by Jaya K. Madhaven, M.D., the narration includes the statement that Myrick wanted to return to Scott. The Michigan Department of Corrections failed to comply with the seventy-two-hour notice provision, and Myrick was transferred to Scott on November 20, 1997. She was so agitated upon arriving that she was immediately placed on a one-on-one suicide watch. The same day a hearing was held before Judge John Corbett O'Meara, who ordered her returned to Huron Valley. Myrick remains at Huron Valley Center and continues to express fear for her life if she is forced to return to Scott.

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