Abuse behind bars

State must end rights violations in its prisons

Michigan's attorney general's office dropped its suit against the New York-based organization Human Rights Watch last week. The suit was intended to force the group to release the names of the plaintiffs in Nunn v. Michigan Department of Corrections, a class-action suit filed by inmates at Michigan's two women's prisons that alleges widespread sexual abuse by male prison guards. The attorney general's attempts to obtain this information were - with all possible understatement - quite brazen considering the state's track record on this issue.

In December 1996, Human Rights Watch released a report titled "All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in State Prisons." The report documented sexual abuse, harassment and privacy violations by prison guards in five states - including Michigan - as well as the District of Columbia. Human Rights Watch attorney Widney Brown stated that "in most states, the problem's acknowledged and the state makes an attempt to deal with it." Not so in Michigan, where Corrections Department officials have consistently denied that any such abuse takes place within state prisons, despite volumes of evidence to the contrary. In fact, repeated allegations of abuse made by female prison inmates in Michigan have prompted the United Nations to launch its own investigation. But Gov. John Engler has refused to allow U.N. human rights monitors into the prisons, accusing them of being an "unwitting tool in the Justice Department's agenda to discredit the state of Michigan." Engler's conspiracy theory aside, it is unreasonable - not to mention unconstitutional - to allow what appears to be rampant and unchecked abuse of the state's prison population.

The Nunn suit alleges not only sexual abuse of female prisoners by male prison guards but - perhaps even more disturbing - severe reprisals against those who have come forward. This brings the constitutional violation tally up to three: the Eighth Amendment bars "cruel and unusual punishment," the Fourth tacitly suggests a right to privacy, and the First guarantees freedom of speech without punishment for exercising it. The class-action suit outlines abuses that range from rape and sexual assault to inappropriate visual surveillance and strip searches performed by male prison guards. Furthermore, those women who have leveled such accusations have been the victims of retaliation at the hands of those whom they accuse. Many women interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported being written up for sexual misconduct themselves after reporting abuse; in addition, several inmates said that they had lost "good time" (accrued toward early release), were subjected to punitive segregation and often lost privileges such as visiting rights after speaking out against the abuse that they suffered.

In light of these allegations, substantiated by several women who have told their stories to Human Rights Watch, it is unconscionable for the state to demand that their names be released; such an action would invite further abuse against those who have already been victimized. While the attorney general's office has dropped its suit against Human Rights Watch, not enough action has been taken to stop the abuse in the first place. Instead of engaging in legal battles with human rights groups, the state should make sure that there is no reason for such investigations in the first place. A citizen does not surrender all of his or her civil rights upon entering prison, and it is the responsibility of the Corrections Department and the state to ensure that such violations as reported by Human Rights Watch do not occur in Michigan's prisons.

10-20-98