Last month, it was a California women's prison going under the microscope over sexual abuse allegations. Now, a probe into alleged widespread sexual abuse by guards in Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women has been ordered by the state of Virginia
The probe was ordered after the Associated Press reported twenty-five sexual misconduct complaints from Fluvanna inmates during the past nine months. Moreover, the AP says, nine incidents were reported in the nine months Fluvanna was open in 1998.
And those cases, one inmate tells the AP, were "the tip of the iceberg…in this little cesspool of seductions."
Virginia's largest women's prison, Fluvanna opened in April 1998. It now has 900 inmates and almost 500 workers. State Secretary of Public Safety Gary Aronhalt ordered his own investigation following the AP reports, going against the standard procedure of prisons investigating inmate complaints themselves.
He told the AP Monday these complaints are routine. "Sometimes gain advantage in the correctional center, other times they are founded,'' Aronhalt says.
A new Virginia law can send a prison guard behind bars for up to five years for having sex with an inmate.
The American Civil Liberties Union tells the AP they know of no other women's prison with a rate of sex abuse complaints as high as Fluvanna. ``That's a strong indication of a very serious problem,'' ACLU attorney Donna Lee tells the AP.
Three Fluvanna correctional officers and a maintenance worker have resigned or been fired this year on charges ranging from giving gifts to inmates to sexual abuse, Senior Warden Patti Leigh Huffman told the AP, with four other employees disciplined and two resigning after allegations were made.
According to the AP, six cases proved unfounded to investigators, no determination could be made in one case, and five were considered too minor to investigate.
One inmate said she was sexually harassed for months by a guard who had assaulted another inmate. This guard, says the AP, was fired, with a grand jury meeting later this month to consider bringing criminal charges against the guard.
Fluvanna senior warden Patti Huffman tells the AP she encourages inmates to come forward. But a court-appointed attorney who offers legal counseling to Fluvanna inmates tells the AP inmates express "pervasive" feelings of being trapped and helpless when "a staff member depended on for protection is the one demanding or forcing them into these situations."
