In January, Strawberry Hampton, a trans woman incarcerated in Illinois, settled a lawsuit about repeated sexual and physical abuse she'd experienced by prison staff in the state's men's prisons. What she endured isn't limited to Illinois prisons, or to men's prisons. Across the country, thousands of incarcerated people face sexual harassment, abuse and assault, frequently at the hands of staff. In the face of these attacks -- and the reality of retaliation -- incarcerated people have come forward to file complaints and lawsuits, fighting back against system-wide abuse.
The Pervasive Problem of Prison Sexual Abuse
In 2016, Hampton, then age 24, was transferred to Pinckneyville Correctional Center, a medium-security men's prison in Illinois. There, officers repeatedly made sexual comments and derogatory slurs toward her and her cellmate, another trans woman. This was not the first time that Hampton had experienced sexual harassment by staff. "Everybody experiences some harassment [in prison]," noted Alan Mills, executive director of the Uptown People's Law Center (UPLC), which works with people incarcerated throughout Illinois and represented Hampton in her suit. "Everybody who is trans or gender nonconforming gets more harassment."
But at Pinckneyville, the verbal abuse escalated into sexual abuse. According to her complaint filed with the courts, in March 2017, several staff members, including an internal affairs officer, entered Hampton's cell. They forced her to put on a thong and her prison-issued bra. They forced her cellmate, a trans woman named Denashio Tester, to put on boxers. They forced the two to dance in a sexual manner, touching themselves and each other. They also grabbed Hampton's breasts and buttocks. Over the next three months, these officers made these demands at least four times. Terrified, neither person reported these events.
[For more on this story by Victoria Law, go to http://www.truth-out.org/news/...he-keys-to-your-cell]
Comments (0)