Alabama DOC Agrees to Protect Women Prisoners from Systemic Sexual Abuse, Harassment
July 7, 2015
The State of Alabama has agreed to implement reforms designed to protect prisoners at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women from what investigators with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) described as a “toxic, sexualized environment” that led to persistent violations of prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights due to “unabated staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse and harassment.” The agreement settles a federal lawsuit filed by the DOJ against Alabama and the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC).
To help monitor the behavior of prison guards, the ADOC installed a “state of the art camera system” at Tutwiler with video cameras “strategically placed to maximize supervision while protecting” prisoners’ privacy, according to the settlement agreement. The settlement also requires unannounced inspections by supervisors to prevent misconduct by guards. Further, the ADOC agreed to step up efforts to recruit female guards at the facility and implement training programs designed to “ensure that all staff have the adequate knowledge, skill, and ability to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse and sexual harassment at Tutwiler.”
“Prisoners are entitled to be safe from sexual predation by staff, and to live in an environment free from sexual assault, sexual harassment and the constant fear of these abuses,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta, head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a press release. “Our agreement uses gender-responsive and trauma-informed principles designed to address and eliminate the culture of abuse that Tutwiler’s women prisoners have suffered from and endured for years.”
“For nearly two decades Tutwiler staff have harmed women in their care with impunity by sexually abusing and sexually harassing them,” the DOJ report declared. “Staff have raped, sodomized, fondled, and exposed themselves to prisoners. They have coerced prisoners to engage in oral sex. Staff engage in voyeurism, forcing women to disrobe and watching them while they use the shower and use the toilet. Staff sexually harass women, subjecting them to a daily barrage of sexually explicit verbal abuse.” Investigators also found that ADOC officials took no action to correct the many problems at Tutwiler despite knowing about them for years. For example, the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in 2007 that the facility had “the highest rate of sexual assaults in the nation” for a women’s prison. [See, e.g.: PLN, Oct. 2013, p.26].
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2015/jul/7/alabama-doc-agrees-protect-women-prisoners-systemic-sexual-abuse-harassment/
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