When surveyed anonymously in 2008 and 2009, 11 participating U.S. correctional facilities posted the highest rates of inmate alleged staff sexual abuse. Three were New York prisons.
Several New York State prisons ranked high in a recent federal survey of inmates reporting staff sexual abuse. A City Limits investigation finds that sexual misconduct in New York’s prisons eludes stereotypes—and, sometimes, detection.
DOCS says that misunderstandings about pat-frisks might explain some of the sexual misconduct allegations its inmates have made against guards. Some evidence suggests, however, that the problems in New York’s female prisons are deeper than that.
For at least 35 years, New York State legal advocates, prison officials and unions have wrestled over how to protect female inmates from sexual abuse when male officers guard them.
More on City Limits investigation into sexual abuse involving male guards and female inmates in New York State prisons–and the national push to eliminate prison sex abuse.
The commissioner of the state prison system responds to our investigation of sex abuse involving male staff and female inmates.
New York State prison guards who break the law by having sex with an inmate often receive favorable treatment by juries and light sentences from judges.
Our magazine’s May 2011 report on staff sexual abuse of women inmates in New York State prisons won a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the national Society of Professional Journalists.
In 2003, Congress voted unanimously for the Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA, which President Bush signed on Sept. 4 of that year.