By: Samantha Powers

Edited By: Jonah elkowitz and maggie farina

In 2003, Congress passed the “Prison Rape Elimination Act,” (PREA) a law meant to establish a “zero tolerance policy” for sexual abuse of incarcerated persons. [1] In practice, however, sexual abuse continues to be an epidemic throughout the federal prison system. Although only 6.9% of federal prisoners are female, they face disproportionate rates of sexual abuse in a system that strips them of their basic human rights. [2] These women are the victims of a federal machine of control, abuse, and silence.

Almost 20 years after PREA was passed, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a scathing report entitled “Sexual Abuse of Female Inmates in Federal Prisons” exposing the ineffectiveness of the original legislation in positively influencing the Bureau of Federal Prisons, or BOP. The report revealed that over the last decade, BOP employees have sexually abused inmates in at least two-thirds of federal prisons that incarcerate women. [3] The ineffectiveness of federal prisons in implementing PREA is so widespread that those with the most power are often the culprits of the harshest abuse — at FCI Dublin, an officer formerly in charge of implementing PREA was convicted of sexually abusing female prisoners in December 2022. [3] There are many reasons for this widespread failure, including mismanagement by the BOP, a culture of silence among inmates, and a lack of accountability for officers, to name a few.

One pervasive issue with PREA is implementing it on a federal level. Prisoners who overcome the fear of retribution enough to report sexual abuse are often faced with an inefficient system of investigation designed to allow the abuse to continue. The Senate’s 2022 report found that the BOP’s Office of Internal Affairs has a backlog of 8,000 internal affairs cases, including at least hundreds of sexual abuse cases, which have not been investigated.

Within prisons, incarcerated victims of abuse must overcome a long series of hurdles in order to achieve redress. First, inmates must overcome informal sanctions for speaking out. Many stay silent for fear of facing continued abuse, being transferred farther away from family, or being placed in solitary confinement as a result of coming forward. [4] Furthermore, if a victim wants to pursue legal action, they often face formal obstacles as well. In 1996, Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act, a law designed to limit “frivolous” lawsuits filed by prisoners, which are costly to the prison system as a whole. [5] If an inmate appeals through every step of the bureaucratic reporting process and their time limit runs out, they can no longer pursue legal action. These hurdles make it clear that the prison system is designed to force inmates into submission.

Another problem for the safety of inmates is a lack of accountability with officers who are accused of sexual abuse. Law 18 U.S.C. § 2243(b) makes it a felony for a BOP employee to engage in any sexual relationship with an inmate because the “inherently unequal” nature of the relationship between officer and inmate makes it impossible for the inmate to give consent. [6] Unfortunately, BOP employees continue to take advantage of this power dynamic and abuse inmates who have been stripped of their free will. In cases where inmates have the courage to report instances of abuse, investigation often comes down to a “he said, she said” battle — but with a twisted caveat; even when BOP officers confess to abusing an inmate, their testimony is considered inadmissible in circumstances where their job is on the line. Under the Supreme Court case Garrity v. New Jersey, officers can’t be prosecuted based on testimony obtained through the threat of loss of employment. This is considered to be coercion under the 5th amendment. [7] For example, the Senate report found that although officers at FCC Coleman testified on the record to sexually assaulting female inmates in graphic detail, the Office of the Inspector General at the Justice Department didn’t investigate. This demonstrates that in the case of sexual abuse investigations, even if the “he said” and the “she said” confirm an instance of abuse, officers still can’t be prosecuted.

Without advocates, support systems, or adequate mental health support, female inmates face an impossible battle to achieve justice. This isn’t an accident — the prison system is designed to strip inmates of their agency, their dignity, and their privacy. Both informally and formally, the federal prison system actively condones sexual abuse of inmates, because implicitly, it serves as another tool of control. Radical change to the culture and construction of the prison system is needed to remedy this national tragedy. Until then, inmates will continue to face abuse, and they will be powerless to stop it.