Content Warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual abuse.
AFGE Council of Prison Locals President Brandy Moore White told lawmakers there’s a whole other side to the discussion of sexual abuse in federal prisons that no one talks about: inmates are frequently sexually harassing and assaulting female employees inside BOP facilities.
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism at a hearing on sexual assaults in U.S. prisons, White cited a Department of Justice Inspector General report released in February last year that inmate-on-staff sexual harassment is “widespread” within the BOP. Besides rape and sexual assault, inmates subject employees to exposing their genitals, exhibitionary masturbation, throwing semen, threats of sexual violence, and degrading sexual comments.
“I can wholeheartedly tell you female staff are quitting because of the sexual abuse to which they are subjected; thereby, further worsening the understaffing crisis and further reducing our ability to keep everyone safe inside of the walls in which we work,” she said.
About 30% or almost 10,000 BOP employees are female, and the agency could not operate without them. As noted in a recent United Nations report on the effect of women working in prisons, the presence of women staff can often defuse tense situations. Women officers’ capacity to empathize also makes a difference in a prison setting.
Not prioritizing staffing has not only caused BOP to lose even more staff but has also cost the agency over $30 million in the last 15 years in settlements following the class action lawsuit brought by female staff at FCC Coleman and FCC Victorville against the agency for failing to prevent inmate sexual harassment. The settlements took place in 2016 and 2018, but the agency just implemented the preventive measures bureau-wide this year. White said it’s a step in the right direction but not the entire solution.
“The most efficient way to provide security and oversight is not cameras and technology, it is staffing. This must be addressed urgently not only for the protection of our staff, but also for the inmates housed in our care,” she explained, adding that the council absolutely condemns sexual abuse of inmates.
BOP’s current funding level is also not adequate, causing the agency to cut many programs including training, which hurts its mission.
Sen. Cory Brooker, who chairs the subcommittee, applauded White for showing up time and again to call attention to inadequate funding and staffing shortages.
“I pray for the day you do not have to come down here to and tell the story over and over and over again,” he said. “And even Congress does things in a bipartisan way under the Republican president to do sentencing reform, programs for prisons, et cetera, we cannot get those things done without funding the institutions that are supposed to be doing that work. It’s embarrassing that you have to come down here and tell the truth.”
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