A new report has been released following a bipartisan Senate investigation that found male prison employees have assaulted women in at least two-thirds of the nation’s federal prisons.
The investigation, done by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, found that employees of the Federal Bureau of Prisons frequently subjected women to sexual abuse across the country.
Many of the “horrific” abuses were not one time occurrences either, as the report noted that the women were abused numerous times over months or even years of being incarcerated. The report went as far as to say that “management failures enabled continued sexual abuse” of prisoners.
Overall the report said that of the 27 facilities the agency holds women at, sexual abuse ocurred in at least 19 of them since 2012.
The report looked at facilities across the country, including two prisons in New York City, where abuse took place for years, and one in Florida, where it lasted for more than a decade.
The report pointed to the Bureau of Prisons, which the committee says failed to implement laws that would prevent sexual abuse, some of which it knew was happening. Overall, the report says the bureau “failed to detect, prevent, and respond to sexual abuse of female prisoners in its custody.”
On Tuesday, Briane Moore testified during a hearing held by the subcommittee. She shared that while she was incarcerated in West Virginia, she was subject to repeated rape and attacks.
“I was sentenced and put in prison for choices I made,” Moore said. “I was not sentenced to prison to be raped and abused while in prison.”
The Bureau of Prisons reports that there are approximately 160,000 federal inmates across the country, and women account for nearly 7% of that population.
Contributing to the subcommittee’s eight month investigation was interviews with abuse victims and prison officials, a review of documents and data, and whistleblowers who came forward.
The report states that any sexual relation between prison staff and inmates is illegal, even if consent is given from both parties.
“This situation is intolerable,” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) said. “Sexual abuse of inmates is a gross abuse of human and constitutional rights and cannot be tolerated by the United States Congress.”
Ossoff gave a gut-wrenching opening statement, depicting the horrific findings of the subcommittee’s investigation.
The investigation found nearly 8,000 internal affairs cases that were still pending, some for more than five years. Hundreds of the cases involved sexual abuse.
Colette Peters, the director of the Bureau of Prisons, told the committee in her opening statement that stopping sexual abuse and misconduct is “an issue of critical importance” to her agency. Part of her plan to stop the abuse includes beefing up the staff of the internal affairs office.
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