“The largest women’s prison in the country subjects incarcerated women to pervasive and frequent sexual assaults, violating their Eighth Amendment rights, the Justice Department concluded in a scathing and graphic report”
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“”Incidents of staff sexual abuse of prisoners at Lowell are varied and disturbing,” the report says. “Some staff abused prisoners through unwanted and coerced sexual contact, including sexual penetration, and groping. Prisoners were forced or coerced to perform fellatio on or touch the intimate body parts of staff. In other instances, staff demanded that prisoners undress in front of them, sometimes in exchange for basic necessities, such as toilet paper.””
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“For prison advocates and families of incarcerated women at Lowell, the report has been overdue for years.
“The families of women incarcerated at Lowell have literally been begging for years for someone—anyone—to listen to their allegations of rampant sexual abuse,” says Greg Newburn, Florida director of policy for the criminal justice advocacy group FAMM. “The conditions there are beyond horrifying, and yet for years their cries for help were ignored.”
Newborn says the report only underscores the need for independent oversight of prisons.
“Anyone who bothered paying attention knew this was happening, and nobody did anything about it,” he says. “How many women have to be sexually assaulted in prison before our leaders act?””
“After more than a year of warnings that Alabama’s gore-soaked prison system violates the Constitution, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the state on Wednesday for its failure to prevent violence and sexual assault against incarcerated men.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division alleges in its civil rights complaint that Alabama’s prison system for men is overcrowded, unsanitary, and that it is deliberately indifferent to the frequent and often deadly assaults against inmates, violating the Eighth Amendment and the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.”
“The report, which clocks in at more than 130 pages, is based on surveys, interviews with prisoners and experts, and a review of state policies. It reveals some sobering figures. Three out of every four prison survey respondents said they’d been served spoiled or rotting food in prison, while more than nine out of 10 prisoners surveyed said they weren’t provided with sufficient food while incarcerated.
It concludes that food served to incarcerated people “and the conditions under which it is served are harmful to physical and mental health and can erode self-esteem, with immediate and long-term impacts.”
The report also notes the COVID-19 pandemic has made lousy prison food even worse.”
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“There’s no good reason to wait to implement these and other necessary changes—which can help reduce waste and fraud, lower recidivism rates, and improve human rights, health, and dignity.”
“More than 7,500 Americans died in jail during the last decade, and two-thirds of them were never convicted of a crime. Those are the stunning topline numbers from an investigation that Reuters published in October.
Anyone who has paid attention to the issue has known for a long time that jail deaths from neglect and occasional malevolence are a nationwide problem—especially when jails become the de facto solution to mental health and drug addiction crises. Last summer, for example, Reason reported on the story of 46-year-old Holly Barlow-Austin, who suffered from medical neglect for months at a Texarkana, Texas, jail before being transferred to a hospital and eventually dying of sepsis due to fungus, cryptococcal meningitis, HIV/AIDS, and accelerated hypertension.”
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“Of the 7,571 jail deaths Reuters identified, most were due to illness. But “more than 2,000 took their own lives amid mental breakdowns, including some 1,500 awaiting trial or indictment,” it reported. “A growing number—more than 1 in 10 last year—died from the acute effects of drugs and alcohol. Nearly 300 died after languishing behind bars, unconvicted, for a year or more.””
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“We can’t solve a problem we can’t see or measure. The Justice Department needs to release the full data it collects on jail deaths, while states and counties must hold law enforcement leadership accountable for the lives under their lock and key.”
“one day in jail plus probation for a lie that nearly cost a man 15 years of his life. Contrast that with the fate of low-income people trapped behind bars because of expensive pre-trial bail. Though the law considers them innocent until proven guilty, they often spend far more time in jail than Bergmann while waiting for their day in court. In one infamous case, Kalief Browder spent three years in Rikers Island without a trial because his bail was set at an unaffordable $3,000.”