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T A B L E++T A L K What do you do when you're forced to choose between child and career? Weigh in on the challenges working parent face in the Mothers area of Table Talk - - - - - - - - - - R E C E N T L Y Breathing lessons Shunning and shaming Your call is important to us. Not. I want you so bad Drama Queen BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATUREARCHIVES - - - - - - - - - - Mamafesto
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SLAVES TO THE SYSTEM | PAGE 1, 2, 3, 4
Although many women, like Lucas and Cruz, suffered violence in isolation, their experience is one that's shared by many female inmates, both individually and in groups. At the Santa Clara County Jail, for example, scores of women have been repeatedly humiliated in mass strip-searches set up by male guards or with male guards looking on. Donna, a former inmate who did not want her last name used, describes such a search: "You're brought into a room, and there's a big window so the guards can see you," she says. "There are four or five women and you're all lined up and made to disrobe. If you happen to be menstruating, that's too bad. You'll just have to bleed on yourself until this is over. Then they say, open your mouth, lift up your tongue, pull your hair back, pull your ears forward. Put your hands forward, expose your underarms, expose the palms of your feet, squat, cough three times, stand up and bend over at the waist, expose your buttocks and vaginal area and then stand there until they tell you to get dressed." At the Santa Clara jail, women were also pulled out of lineup and strip-searched in this way in full view of kitchen workers, grounds crews and even visiting attorneys and relatives. Prison officials say these searches are necessary to rout out contraband, but civil rights attorneys say their primary purpose is intimidation. "It's about power," says Wilson. "And because of the lack of response [from higher-ups], guards seem to have the attitude that they can do anything." Rick Kitson, public information officer for the Santa Clara County Department of Corrections, said the class-action against the jail system is currently being reviewed for summary judgement and that a judge has ordered the defendants not to comment on the case. "I couldn't comment on the specifics, but I can say that in fact the county is vigorously contesting the charges and for those individuals where there have been sustained findings and accusations, the Department of Corrections has vigorously pursued the full force and measure of the law to prosecute." It's not just guards. Allegations of sexual abuse and harassment have been filed against prison ministers, doctors and male nurses, low-level administrators and even wardens. Sexual degradation and humiliation of women by staff is so ingrained in the culture of many women's prisons that it seems to have become an accepted mode of control in the custodial environment. In Washington, D.C., for example, quid pro quo sex with inmates was such a recognized part of the job for 20 or 30 years, says Brenda V. Smith, senior counsel of the National Women's Law Center, that it was considered an "attractive feature of the work environment." The assumption: Once a woman enters a federal or state facility, she gives up all her rights, not only to her freedom and daily tasks, but to her body and to ward off sexual advances. Complicating the problem, of course, is that many women in prison have just left the streets, where the same thing was expected of them, whether they were prostitutes or addicts who gave up their bodies in return for drugs. At the same time, a huge proportion of women serving time have already been sexually victimized in their lives. According to Human Rights Watch, anywhere from 40 to 88 percent of incarcerated women have been victims of domestic violence and sexual or physical abuse either as children or adults. They have already been "conditioned" to believe that they deserve such treatment, and to remain silent, and the prison system plays on that vulnerability to intimidate them and keep them in line. With those subjugative factors in place, it takes an extreme situation and an uncommonly strong and self-confident woman, like Lucas or Cruz, to tear down the wall of silence. "There's no reason to believe this was an isolated incident," said Lucas' lawyer, Geri Lynn Green, of her client's assault. "What was isolated about it was that someone came forward." If anything, the problem is only becoming worse as the ranks of incarcerated women swell at an alarming rate. Today, the rate of increase of the female prison population has far outstripped the rate of men entering the system, and since 1980, the number of women in prison has risen by 400 percent. To keep up with the expanding population, the system needs more prisons. Since just 1990, the United States has built 16 new women's prisons, requiring the accelerated training and hiring of thousands of new guards. Not only has this made it more difficult for corrections departments to adequately train new recruits, says Brown, but it has disrupted the old, more civil, order of life in women's facilities. "When younger guards get out of line, it used to be there were older guards who would tell them not to do that," she says. "When you have prisons that are staffed by all new guards, there's no culture in place that says that no, it's not OK to do this with the women." Jenni Gainsborough, public policy director for the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, argues that the proportion of incidents of sexual misconduct may not be increasing at all, but that there are just more women who are talking. "One of the reason we're hearing about it now is that there are more women in prisons, more male guards guarding them and more prisons," she says. When asked to respond to allegations of sexual misconduct by prison staff under its control, the U.S. Department of Justice says it "takes very seriously all allegations" of sexual misconduct. "Every allegation is reviewed and, where warranted, referred for criminal prosecution." Considering the large number of allegations, the number of actual prosecutions hasn't been overwhelming. According to the Justice Department's own records, only 10 prison employees in the entire federal system were disciplined in 1997 for sexual misconduct, and just seven were criminally prosecuted. In March of this year, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reached a settlement agreement with Robin Lucas and the other two Dublin inmates, agreeing not to house any more female inmates in the men's detention center, to create a confidential mechanism for reporting sexual assaults and to hire a consultant to review the prison's staff training programs. They also awarded the three women $500,000 to split. But the system has still not taken any of its employees to task for admitting male inmates into the cells of female inmates at night -- for a fee. The Justice Department claimed that an extensive investigation by its inspector general's office "did not establish sufficient evidence to prove under the standards for prosecution that any specific individual violated federal criminal law," and the U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco and the Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C., agreed. No grounds for prosecution? Have they looked at Robin Lucas' face, to see the thick scar near her hairline where her head was smashed against her bunk, and the smaller scars on her arms and torso? Did they listen when she told them about how she still bleeds from her rectum? Perhaps they are conveniently hiding behind the fact that they never sent a doctor in to examine Lucas after the rape, never took blood samples from her cell and never collected any evidence on her behalf. Still, one has to wonder how a case that is worth $500,000 to the Federal Bureau of Prisons warrants no criminal charges against the assailants involved. It's those kinds of questions that wrack Lucas' brain when she thinks about her share of the money. "Is that what I had to go through?" she says. "Is that my compensation?" She has used some of the funds to renovate the board and care home and to buy certain amenities, like the new lawn mower. In May, she also used some to help her pay for a trip to Phoenix, where she tried out for the WNBA. I follow Lucas through the narrow corridors of the basement and out to the small backyard where she shoots a couple of hoops and talks about the Justice Department's response to her claim. "These guys take an oath to protect and keep order," she says, missing her shot. "He broke that oath. But they're saying he didn't do anything wrong. That just fucks me up." She misses another shot, walks back toward the now-assembled mower and jerks its chord, eliciting a violent roar.
"If I would have known that would have happened to me I would have ran,"
she shouts over the rumbling of the motor. "I would have ran to the ends of
the earth."
Nina Siegal is a freelance journalist who writes for a variety of publications including the New York Times, Ms., the Progressive and San Francisco Magazine.She lives in New York. |
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