Women in U.S. Prisons Tortured, Sexually Abused

Such abuse includes rape and other sexual violations by prison guards and male prisoners, the use of shackles during childbirth, and inadequate medical care, according to the 125-page report, called "Not Part of My Sentence."

The new report came just four days before International Women's Day on Mar. 8 and is part of an unprecedented series by the London-based human rights group on abuses in the United States. Much of the series focuses on abuses committed against inmates, including children, in U.S. jails.

"The sexual abuse of women inmates is torture, plain and simple," said William Schulz, director of the U.S. chapter of Amnesty. "Shackling and medical neglect of women in prison constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. These human rights violations must not stand."

About 25 percent of women inmates today are in prison for committing a violent crime, while some 40 percent are serving time for violating drug laws, many of which require "mandatory minimum" sentences regardless of any mitigating circumstances.

These laws have resulted in an explosion of the prison population -- both male and female -- in the United States but the growth in the number of female inmates over the last 12 years has risen at an average of 11.2 percent a year since 1985, while the number of male inmates rose by an average of about 7.9 percent.

As in the rest of the American penal system, minorities make up a disproportionate share of the womens' prison population, as they do among men.

For every white woman serving a prison term, there are four Hispanic women and eight African-American women.

Women's correctional facilities -- and particularly the training and employment of women guards -- have not kept pace with the soaring inmate population. As a result, prisons often permit men to guard women inmates, contrary to international standards.

Some 70 percent of guards employed in federal women's correctional facilities -- which must generally meet higher standards than state or county prisons -- are men. Moreover, 12 states have no laws criminalizing sexual contact between prison staff and women inmates, the report reveals.

Amnesty said it received many reports of sexual abuse of inmates by staff. At one prison in California, for example, Amnesty researchers interviewed prisoners who reported that some male officers watched them dress and groped their breasts and genital areas during routine pat-down searches.

In addition, women inmates also are subject to sexually and racially abusive language by male staff, according to the report.

Abuses can be even more serious. Guards have been found responsible for rape of women inmates in some 14 states, including two cases in which the rapes resulted in the impregnation of the victims.

Under international law, rape of a prisoner by correctional staff is considered to be an act of torture.

In one case, guards sold male inmates access to three women being held in the high-security unit of Dublin federal facility in California. The women were raped and sodomized.

When Robin Lucus, one of the victims, complained about the attack, she was badly beaten and sodomized by three unidentified assailants.

Lucas and two other victims sued the prison and last year gained a $500,000 settlement. "Today, I can celebrate that the recent 17-count indictment of Dublin prison guard Jon Hyson is yet another vindication of the struggle waged by myself and other women at Dublin. But so much remains to be done," Lucas told reporters here.

In addition to sexual abuse, the report documents the use of shackles and other physical restraints on women inmates, regardless of whether they have a history of violence or escape attempts, when they are transported to and from hospitals and during their hospital stays for medical treatment and even childbirth.

In 1997-98, more than 2,200 pregnant women were put in prison, and more than 1,300 babies were born there.

Restraints, according to medical experts, endanger both the mother and her baby during labor and delivery and prevent the mother from adequately caring for her baby, according to the report.

About 80,000 women -- more than one-half of the total female inmate population in the United States -- are the mothers of some 200,000 children under the age of 18, and the great majority of lived with their children before they were incarcerated, according to the report.

"If the mothers of more than 200,000 children in this country have been abused or mistreated while in prison, if their health has been broken, that will be have a profound effect on their ability to care for those children, and that will affect every one of us," Schulz said.