As part of a sweeping two-year investigation into prison labor, The Associated Press found that correctional staff nationwide have been accused of using inmate work assignments to sexually abuse incarcerated women, luring them to isolated spots, out of view of security cameras.
Published: 15 minutes ago
When she got downstairs, she said Widen offered to save her some money by opening “the cage,” a little room with free washers and dryers reserved for new prisoners who hadn’t yet started their jobs.“He’s rubbing himself,” she said, while reminding her of all the little favors he’d done for her. “He was like … ‘It’s time to pay.’”Her account of that night to The Associated Press mirrors, almost word for word, the complaint she filed with police eight years ago.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act, passed more than 20 years ago, created a channel for filing reports that resulted in a threefold increase in the number of allegations of staff sexual misconduct involving male, female and transgender inmates from 2010 to 2020 at jails and prisons nationwide. Correctional staff often quit or retire before internal investigations are complete, sometimes retaining pensions and other benefits, experts say. With no paper trail and severe staff shortages, some are simply transferred or hired at other facilities or they land positions overseeing vulnerable populations like juveniles, the AP found.Officer Widen took a job in West Virginia after resigning from a women’s prison in neighboring Ohio.
AP reporters met with current and former prisoners inside correctional facilities and at their homes in mountain communities, some of whom said staff members often started out being nice — bringing them fast food or makeup — and then raped them, peeped at them in showers or forced them to strip and perform sex acts on other prisoners while the guards watched.Most female victims locked up nationwide were abused before being incarcerated, research shows.
Woelfel, who also is a Democratic state senator, said he has settled 127 cases in which women accused guards of abuse in the past 15 years, forcing the state’s insurance carrier to pay out millions of dollars. That began to change in the 1970s after anti-discrimination laws opened the door for cross-gender supervision, just as the number of women being locked up started to rise. Though they now represent only about 10 percent of the nation’s overall prison population, female incarceration rates have jumped from about 26,000 in 1980 to nearly 200,000 today.
Even before the languishing criminal case, Youst and three others from the Huntington work release center came forward to file civil suits against Widen. The cases were settled by the state’s insurance carrier for $240,000 in 2019, with no admission of any wrongdoing, Woelfel said. The AP interviewed three of the women. The fourth died of an overdose before the agreement was reached.
The Huntington Addiction Wellness Center, formerly the Huntington Work Release Center where April Youst was assigned as a prisoner, sits in downtown Huntington W. Va., Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. . At least two men who pleaded guilty to sexual abuse were work supervisors: Nakie Nunley targeted at least five female prisoners who worked at the federal government’s call center, where inmates are employed by companies to do jobs like telemarketing and customer service. And Andrew Jones abused women who worked for him in the kitchen. The correctional facility was recently shut down; Nunley and Jones have been imprisoned along with at least five others, with another case still pending.
This September 2023 booking photo, provided by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, shows Jose Figueroa-Lizarraga, a former Arizona state prison guard who was sentenced to two years probation after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of committing unlawful sexual acts by a custodian. “I heard him say something about juveniles — you know, working in a juvenile facility. That’s when I knew I had to say something,” she said.
One winter morning, she said she stuffed a plastic bag containing the clothes from that night into her coat and left the work release center for her job. She called the one person she had heard could help – attorney Michael Woelfel.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Prison TV Series With 95% On Rotten Tomatoes Needs A Revival Way More Than Prison BreakWentworth Miller surrounded by the backdrop of Wentworth Prison
Read more »
Martha Stewart says her daytime show was ‘more like prison’ than actual prison timeIn the new documentary about her life, Martha Stewart says her syndicated daytime show was 'more like prison' than the actual jail time she served for obstruction of justice.
Read more »
Diddy Party NDA Revealed, Signees Can't Talk About Anyone Associated With DiddyDiddy's parties for the rich and famous have long been shrouded in mystery, but now TMZ can show why -- 'cause we've obtained a standard NDA Combs asked party attendees to sign.
Read more »
Four Big Ten Teams Enter Associated Press, Coaches Top Ten in Latest RankingsIn the final Associated Press and USA Today Coaches top 25 polls prior to the release of the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season, four Big Ten Conference teams solidified their spots within the top ten after strong weekend performances.
Read more »
The Associated Press' role in calling races and polling votersThe Associated Press has been calling elections for decades. In this episode of The Story Behind The AP Story, we peel back the curtain and take a look at what goes into calling those races and polling the electorate on the issues that matter to them.
Read more »
Takeaways from The Associated Press investigation into sexual abuse of incarcerated womenAs part of a sweeping two-year investigation into prison labor, The Associated Press found that correctional staff nationwide have been accused of using inmate work assignments to sexually abuse incarcerated women, luring them to isolated spots, out of view of security cameras.
Read more »