The California Department of Corrections is under scrutiny after multiple female prisoners have come out with stories of sexual abuse by prison guards. As ABC7 News reports, the lawsuit details the graphic and extensive sexual abuse that prisoners endured for over a decade.
Over 130 former prisoners from female facilities in both Chino and Chowchilla in California have said that the alleged abuse was not only physical but verbal, in forms of mockery and unprofessional gestures and statements.
The inmates stated that they were forced into silence regarding their situation and the ones who spoke out against these abuses were punished. In the case of one prisoner, the guard who sexually abused her was given a paid suspension before returning back to work with no further punishment—despite the fact that sexual contact between guards and prisoners is deemed a federal crime. Throughout several instances detailed in the lawsuit, guards would intentionally isolate women at random anywhere they wanted.
Guards have become accustomed to a lack of punishment for making sexual statements, intimidation, and rape, to the point of the abuse bordering on systemic. Because they outrank the prisoners, there is a troubling sense that many guards have the perspective that they have complete immunity in how they treat prisoners.
They could get away with it because it came down to credibility of a prisoner versus somebody who is in a position of power and authority over them.They could get away with it because it came down to credibility of a prisoner versus somsebody who is in a position of power and authority over them.”
— Doug Rochen from ACTS Firm, who represents the former inmates’ part of the lawsuit
In the past 10 years, stories on sexual assault in women’s prisons in California have become more common. U.S. News describes a former correctional officer from a California prison in Oakland being found guilty of sexually assaulting two female inmates. Similarly, The Guardian reports that many prison guards and supervisors of the Central California Women’s Facility and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have hundreds of filed reports against them for sexual abuse that had continued since 2014—up until they were brought to attention just four months ago.
The egregious sexual abuse that took place at FCI Dublin was disgraceful and tragic, and the Justice Department will not rest until we have eliminated such misconduct from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.”
— Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco, in an official statement
This statement was publicly made after former correctional officer Andrew Jones pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual abuse to female prisoners and then was subsequently sentenced to 8 years in prison.
After prevailing through more than a decade of sexual abuse, many female prisoners are finally getting the justice they deserve. Through secret “examinations” and random isolations, guards have been forcing themselves on these prisoners for as long as some of them have been incarcerated. For years, the state of California’s Correctional Department has ignored prisoners’ claims of sexual abuse. The Bureau of Justice Statistics states that an estimated 80,000 women and men experience sexual abuse every year in American correctional facilities, hinting that this lawsuit is the first of many forthcoming lawsuits in pursuit of justice.