Jail Beatings, Abuse and Rapes - Our broken prison system

by Bob Vogel, Attorney, Knoxville, TN
(send comments to rlvogel@robertvogellaw.com)

“When nearly one in 20 prisoners reports being raped or sexually abused behind bars, it is clear that prison authorities are not doing enough to prevent these serious crimes,” said Jamie Fellner, senior counsel of the US Program at Human Rights Watch.

In fact, prison authorities may even be perpetuating the crimes. Some guards simply turn away. Some watch. Others have sexually assaulted or coerced prisoners into sex or sexually abusive situations. It was recently reported that a female inmate was subjected to a body cavity search when she entered a county jail. She was put in a small bathroom, the door of which opened to the main processing area of the jail. The female guard made her strip completely, squat and cough. She yelled at her: "cough louder, bitch," several times.

Then, she informed the girl that she was going to have to get a mirror so she could see better. With that, the guard opened the door of the bathroom, exposing the female prisoner to a large room full of male officers and inmates who all could plainly see her naked body. When she tried to move behind the door, the female officer screamed at her, "stay where you are, bitch, I didn't tell you to move." And continued to loudly berate and verbally abuse her. ACLU Video of a Prison Strip Search Procedure - graphic

If this did not humiliate her enough, the female guard then went back inside the room with her, and made her squat and cough several more times while looking at her vagina and anus with a mirror, verbally abusing and berating her the whole time. She finally let her stand and get dressed, but then put her in a cell with two other woman with no bathroom. It is supposed to be a holding cell, but because the jail is crowded, they make people stay in these cells permanently.

They have no bathroom facility and no door. They are exposed, 24/7 to anyone that wants to look in on them. Additionally, since they have no bathroom, they have to beg to be taken to one. The guards, out of vindictiveness or apathy, do not take them very often. The women have to urinate in old orange juice containers. And, remember, everyone can see them while they do that. One woman said that she only sips her drinks to keep her mouth from getting dry out of fear that she will have to go to the bathroom and the guards won't take her.

Another female prisoner in State prison told of a guard who would give them favors if he could watch two females have sex while he stood in the door and masturbated.

Where people are disadvantaged and imprisoned, or subject to prosecution, it is too easy to take advantage of them.  Many of these people are stuck in county jail because they cannot make bond. Often, they plea to things they didn't do because it is the only way they can get out of jail and away from these abusive and terrible situations. In a sense, we have recreated the torture chamber and are eliciting confessions by confining people to the terrors of the dungeon.

And, forget taking your case to trial if you are poor and can't make bond. It might be two years before you get a trial date because of the busy court schedules. This situation is constantly exploited by the prosecutors and the police to secure convictions for arrests that would likely fail the test of a trial. Just another kind of abuse and rape, isn't it?

I have seen the scars from beatings on my clients: on wrists where the guards put handcuffs on too tight (months later, the individual can show scars that will never leave) and his hands swelled up to five times their normal size. Jailers beat him, tazered his testicles, gave him shots of drugs and tied him in a steel chair designed to restrain people and which resembles a medieval rack ready to rip the person to pieces. People are left in chairs like this for hours.

Here are some other stories of sexual assaults by prison authorities on inmates:

Tennessee

Jackson County Sheriff Kenneth Bean initially refused to step down after being charged with numerous counts of sexual contact involving at least 10 female jail prisoners. A six-month investigation revealed that Bean had coerced prisoners to have sex by threatening to plant evidence against them. He was also charged with failure to secure and maintain evidence.

“[Bean] offered and gave illegal drugs and favorable treatment to inmates in exchange for sexual favors,” said special prosecutor Alan Poindexter.

In September 2008, as part of a plea bargain, Sheriff Bean resigned and pleaded guilty to a charge of simple assault. Under the plea agreement he cannot run for sheriff again for six years. Additionally, three Jackson County deputies were convicted on charges involving sex with female prisoners.

On June 13, 2008, Kevin D. Vance, a former employee of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, was arrested and charged with having sexual contact with a female prisoner. Vance had worked at the jail for over three years.

Montgomery County jail employee Santiago Alcantara had been fired for the same offense a month earlier. Both Vance and Alcantara pleaded guilty in October 2008, and each received two years pre-trial diversion and probation.

Thomas Baccus was a guard at the Henderson County Jail when he was suspended in March 2008, then fired for having a sexual relationship with a female prisoner. He was arrested last June and charged with felony sexual contact and official misconduct. Baccus had previously been terminated from the Turney Center Industrial Prison, a state facility, for having white supremacy propaganda on his MySpace webpage.

Former Shelby County jail guard Antonious Totten was charged with sexual contact with a female prisoner in March 2007. Totten was supervising several women on a work detail when he decided to hook up with one of them. The two reportedly had sex in a van in full view of the other prisoners, who remained silent because they did not want to lose their jobs. After one prisoner eventually came forward they all were called as witnesses.

Totten’s attorney, Blake Ballin, called the witnesses against his client “a parade of liars, thieves, cheats and forgers.” Nevertheless, Totten was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail. The sentence was suspended except for time he had to serve on weekends.

On November 18, 2008, Angel Harris appeared in court on felony charges of having sexual contact with a prisoner. Harris was employed at the CCA-run Silverdale Detention Center in Chattanooga at the time the incident took place.

There is an epidemic out there and it is growing. Somehow, for some reason, our society is becoming hardened and callous about the way people in prison are treated. And the predators are taking advantage of it. Our people, our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters, cousins, children - our fellow human beings are being preyed on. And, not just by prison authorities and other prisoners - even by the system itself that charges them $5 per minute to make a phone call, overcharges them for catheter bags that leak, won't give them proper medication and let infections eat away at their bodies.

There is a song by Phil Ochs and one of the verses goes like this:

Show me a prison,
Show me a jail,
Show me a prison man whose face is growing pale;
And I'll show you a young man,
With many reasons why,
and there but for fortune,
may go, you or I, you or I.

Maybe we need a good dose of walking in the other guys shoes. Maybe we should remember what Jesus said: "...I was in prison and you came to visit me." And the (self) righteous answered him and asked "...when?" And He answered: "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

I see people in prisons and jails everyday. I hear their complaints and their cries for help. Sometimes, I look with dismay at the administrative fortress protecting their abusers. And, if I can breach that, the artillery barrage of case law judges have created to protect the abusers and oppressors. They can't see my client, not from the tower of the castle in which they hid and render their anemic decisions.

But, in the end, it is our, society's attitudes that is just rotten. For those held pre-trial with impossible bonds, I want to scream out - they are not guilty. You swore to uphold our constitution and it says that they are not guilty. And, after they are convicted, they become more like cattle. In fact, I don't think people would treat their cattle as badly. They treat them as inhuman - as slaves - as something beneath notice.

And maybe we need to ask ourselves why our country has the highest percentage of incarceration of all western countries?

And there but for fortune, may go you or I....you or I. I pray that neither one of us has to experience what these people live with every day.

Bob V.

If you or someone you know and love was harmed, beaten, abused, raped, or murdered by the police or the prison authorities PLEASE contact me immediately: Bob Vogel, Attorney, The Vogel Law Firm - rlvogel@robertvogellaw.com  or call 865-357-1949. We are ready to help you!