State announces steps to protect female prisoners

GIG HARBOR -- A lawsuit filed on behalf of four female prisoners alleging years of sexual misconduct by Department of Corrections officers -- from voyeurism to forcible rape -- has raised questions about the culture within Washington's prisons and prompted reforms.

Flanked by department brass and lawyers for the state, Acting Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail announced Wednesday that he would install more security cameras in women's prisons, put more female officers on staff and use Washington State Patrol investigators instead of department staff members to evaluate sexual misconduct allegations.

	"Sexual misconduct in prisons is something we’ve been dealing with for a long time. I’m not proud of that fact." -- Acting Corrections Secretary Eldon Vail

Vail stopped short of blaming "the culture of the agency" for the raft of accusations that have placed seven male officers on leave. But he said, "There have been more allegations in a short amount of time than I'm comfortable with."

The suit, filed in July by Columbia Legal Services, was prompted by two women who said they were assaulted by multiple prison guards while incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center for Women here, commonly referred to as Purdy. Since then, two more women have joined the suit, and others have come forward.

"I really feel like we're at the tip of the iceberg," said Beth Colgan, Columbia's lead attorney representing the women.

At least one of the plaintiffs has been the target of retribution, she added, describing the atmosphere in Washington women's prisons as "charged" with verbal harassment and sexual intimidation.

Logical as the new protective measures may be, it has taken the department years to create them.

Since at least 2005, reports from women alleging sexual intimidation and rape sat in files at Purdy with no decisive action taken, corrections officials acknowledged Wednesday. Female inmates at the Pine Lodge and Mission Creek prisons have made similar allegations.

In response to Colgan's lawsuit, Harold Clarke, then-corrections secretary, hired three consultants to study the department's record in protecting female inmates, as well as its method of investigating sexual misconduct allegations, and the recent allegations themselves.

One report, noting the prevalence of male officers assigned to female housing units and the dearth of security cameras monitoring them, bluntly stated, "If a planned sexual assault was the objective, the perpetrator would have a reasonably high possibility of completing the act without being detected."

At Purdy, for example, just 56 of the prison's 178 custody officers are women.

Colgan said that department investigators looking into such allegations have ignored evidence supporting inmates' complaints. And when female prisoners make such reports, they are routinely asked to take a lie detector test -- a practice almost unheard of among women in the general public -- while prison guards are not.

Vail, who took over from Clarke last month, was blunt in his response. "I'm not real comfortable with our current practice" in handling sexual misconduct allegations, he said, vowing to pursue criminal prosecution and termination of any employee engaged in such behavior.

To date, no such criminal investigation exists and five of the accused officers remain employed -- assigned to remain at home, with pay. Two others have resigned.

Vail declined to name any of the suspects, saying they were still owed the due process of a departmental review. But records from Purdy have been turned over to the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, he said.

Washington is hardly alone in confronting the issue. Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that nationwide about 4.5 percent of incarcerated offenders have experienced sexual violence while in prison. More than half of those said the sexual misconduct involved correctional staff.

The state has attempted to combat the problem by conducting psychological tests on incoming corrections staff members and by passing legislation that criminalizes staff sexual misconduct. That law was enacted after a female prisoner was impregnated by a prison guard in 1997.

"Sexual misconduct in prisons is something we've been dealing with for a long time," said Vail, a former superintendent at Purdy. "I'm not proud of that fact."

Tracey Thompson, a senior staff attorney for the union representing corrections officers, said she had not seen the three reports criticizing Washington's handling of female prisoners. But corrections officers generally support Vail's new safety measures -- largely because they protect staff as well as inmates.

"Security cameras work to the benefit of our members, because sometimes there are false allegations made," she said. "The great majority of these employees are acting properly and are engaging in no misconduct and, in fact, are doing an outstanding job."