Female inmates in Hawai’i and in facilities across the U.S. are demanding accountability for a pattern of sexual abuse by guards and staff. More than 5,000 claims of sexual assault and abuse by guards have been reported since 2012, including a series of assaults at the Women’s Community Correctional Center in Kailua.
Hawaiʻi prison officials have pledged to improve security for women inmates at the facility as part of a $2 million settlement on behalf of six women who were sexually assaulted by guards.
“This settlement recognizes that these women were victims while in the State’s custody and that they should receive a measure of justice for the harm the ACOs caused them,” said Attorney General Anne Lopez.
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Pattern of Sex Assaults at Prisons for Women
The Hawai‘i abuses are part of a pattern of assaults that point to a failure to protect inmates from sexual assault by correctional officers.
In August 2023, eight female inmates at a federal facility in the San Francisco Bay Area filed a lawsuit over sexual abuse and exploitation. The women said the attacks at the FCI Dublin facility continued despite the prosecution of the former warden and several former officers.
The federal Bureau of Prisons had pledged to fix widespread security problems in response to an investigation by the Associated Press that found “a permissive and toxic culture at the Bay Area lockup, enabling years of sexual misconduct by predatory employees and cover-ups that have largely kept the abuse out of the public eye.” The investigation revealed that the mostly male staff at the correctional facility ignored complaints, and women who made outcries were sent to solitary confinement and other forms of retaliation.
According to the California lawsuit, the bureau has failed to address rampant misconduct within its ranks, causing an ongoing threat to female inmates. The problems at women’s correctional facilities include:
- Reports of sexual abuse are common among the approximately 148,000 women in jails and prisons across the U.S. In federal facilities for women, approximately 70 percent of guards are male. Inmates who file reports about sexual assault, sexual extortion and groping during body searches often face retaliation.
- In 2020 alone, inmates filed 422 complaints about staff-on-inmate sexual abuse across the system of 122 prisons and 153,000 inmates. The Bureau of Prisons said it substantiated only four complaints and that 290 are still being investigated.
- According to a Senate investigative report, women were abused by prison staff in at least 19 of the 22 federal correctional facilities that house female inmates across the country since 2012. The Bureau of Prisons opened 5,415 sex abuse claims against federal employees between 2012 and 2022.
In the Hawaiʻi case, four jailers at the facility reportedly assaulted inmates between 2013 and 2016. The guards forced inmates to have sex with them, often in exchange for contraband such as snacks, access to cell phones and even drugs. The corrections officers involved in the lawsuit have been terminated and criminal charges were brought against them.
In their lawsuit, the women argued that video cameras should have been installed to prevent the sexual assaults from taking place. The facility installed new security cameras earlier this year following the settlement. The women were sexually assaulted at least 53 times as part of an ongoing pattern of abuse at the facility, state officials acknowledged.
How We Help Sex Abuse Victims
Our Hawaiʻi sexual abuse lawyers work one-on-one with survivors, offering a direct, personal level of care and discretion. We use our years of experience in prosecuting sex abuse cases to fight on behalf of survivors, aggressively taking on those responsible for the pain and suffering they’ve caused. Our results obtaining justice for victims speak for themselves. If you are a survivor of childhood or adult sexual abuse, we can help.
