The Prisons Crisis Lawmakers Want to Fix Is “Inmate-on-Staff Sexual Assault”

    Lawmakers have unveiled a proposal they claim will improve safety and security in prisons by addressing rampant sexual abuse—referring not to the abuse of incarcerated people, but to a purported “epidemic” of “inmate-on-staff sexual assault and harassment.”

    Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced the Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act on January 29. The January 31 companion bill in the House was announced by Florida Representative Laurel Lee (R). The three sponsors first introduced the legislation last Congress, where it passed unanimously out of the Senate before stalling in the House. It applies specifically to Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) facilities, and would require heightened data collection of the types of incidents in question. 

    “This legislation casts incarcerated people as the enemy,” Atteeyah Hollie, deputy director at the Southern Center for Human Rights, told Filter. “And in doing so sends a message that people in custody should be feared, rather than re-integrated.”

    In 2019, prompted by “receipt of congressional inquiries,” the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) undertook what it described as “an evaluation to assess the prevalence and effects of inmate-on-staff sexual harassment, as well as the BOP’s efforts to address this form of inmate behavior.” The department’s 2023 report on its findings referenced its separate work related to sexual abuse of people in BOP custody, both by their peers and by staff, but stated that that was outside the scope of the evaluation.

    The report emphasized—several times—that the OIG had been “unable to identify the prevalence and scope of inmate-on-staff sexual harassment.”

    That OIG report is the basis for the legislation reintroduced in January. Sexual harassment of staff by prisoners does happen, and as the OIG noted most of the staff being targeted are women. But despite the sponsors’ rhetoric, their bill is mostly justified with a statistic from a survey of BOP staff in which 40 percent of respondents indicated that they had at some point been sexually harassed by someone in their custody. The report mainly emphasized—several times—that the OIG had been “unable to identify the prevalence and scope of inmate-on-staff sexual harassment” due to inconsistent reporting practices, as well as different understandings of which behaviors were encompassed by the term.

    In September 2024 Ossoff and Blackburn launched an inquiry prompted by the OIG findings, which led to the proposed legislation. If enacted it would require BOP to implement all recommendations in the report within 90 days, and to continue working with the OIG (both agencies are overseen by the DOJ) to analyze the resulting data.

    Particular emphasis is given to “analysis of punishments.” In 2024 Blackburn also introduced legislation that would double the penalties for assaulting BOP correctional officers.

    Blackburn and Lee did not respond to Filter’s inquiries. Asked whether Ossoff is currently taking similar steps toward mitigating sexual harassment and assault of people in custody, a representative for his office pointed to a 2022 investigation that found that in at least 19 out of 29 federal women’s prisons, staff have sexually abused people in their custody. In multiple facilities this abuse was recurring, and in some cases perpetrated by senior staff. Hundreds if not more of the BOP sexual abuse cases were backlogged.

     


     

    Photograph (cropped) via Federal Bureau of Prisons

    • Christy, also known as C Dreams, is a writer and advocate interested in prison/criminal justice reform, LGBTQ rights, harm reduction and government/cultural criticism. She has studied history/theology with the Third Order of Carmelites and completed degrees in Systematic Theology. She is currently studying law. You can read her other Filter writing here and here.

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