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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">New York’s Imprisoned Women
Brave Risks to Sue Sexual Abusers Under New Law</h1>
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<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Molly
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<h2>New York’s Adult Survivors Act briefly waives the
statute of limitations to file sexual abuse
lawsuits. Some of New York’s imprisoned women are
risking retaliation from guards in order to file
cases alleging horrific treatment at the hands of
the state.</h2>
<img
src="https://theappeal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/erik-mclean-unsplash-1200x800.webp"
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<p><small>Erik McLean via Unsplash</small> </p>
<h2>New York’s Imprisoned Women Brave Risks to Sue
Sexual Abusers Under New Law</h2>
<h2>New York’s Adult Survivors Act briefly waives the
statute of limitations to file sexual abuse
lawsuits. Some of New York’s imprisoned women are
risking retaliation from guards in order to file
cases alleging horrific treatment at the hands of
the state.</h2>
<hr>
<p><em>Content Warning: This story contains depictions
of sexual harassment and abuse.<br>
</em><br>
Kim Brown says she met a lieutenant at New York’s
Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in 1996 or 1997
when she was sent to his office for disciplinary
reasons. But the officer seemed unusually interested
in her.</p>
<p>“He started calling me down, and I didn’t
understand why,” she told The Appeal. I didn’t do
anything.” Their initial meetings were “under the
guise of interviewing me about things that were
going on in the facility,” she said. “And then it
became light. He would offer me a drink.”</p>
<p>Brown eventually relented to the pressure from a
man with near-total control over her life inside the
prison—a situation she now sees as sexual abuse.
Today, Brown feels she finally has one way to fight
back: She is among nearly 1,000 women filing claims
so far this year as part of New York’s Adult
Survivors Act (ASA), which briefly waives New York’s
statute of limitations requirements to file sexual
abuse lawsuits.</p>
<p>But while the new law is intended to address past
harm, Brown is one of only a small number of women
likely to be doing so from prison. For incarcerated
people like Brown, filing a claim—or even talking
about what happened to them—carries unique risks.
Among numerous claims, currently or formerly
incarcerated people have alleged that guards have
coerced women into performing oral sex in plain view
of others, refused to allow imprisoned people to
file complaints under the federal Prison Rape
Elimination Act, forced women to perform sex acts by
threatening discipline; locked people in prison
facilities and assaulted them; and a host of other
serious incidents.</p>
<p>In both legal filings and interviews, formerly
incarcerated women described to The Appeal a culture
in which sexual abuse at the hands of New York
prison staff is widespread but rarely reported or
discussed. Advocates said they have hesitated to
discuss the ASA with prisoners for fear of
retaliation from prison staff.</p>
<p>“One thing I keep thinking about is, how do we not
[put] a target on them?” said Serena Liguori, of New
Hour for Women and Children–Long Island, a nonprofit
that aids women and families impacted by the justice
system.</p>
<p>Many women in prison were already survivors of
sexual abuse before becoming incarcerated, which
survivors say can make it harder to speak out about
prison abuse. For this reason, Liguori, who was
incarcerated at Bedford Hills in the early 2000s,
said she accepted her own abuse by staff as normal.</p>
<p>“Like this is my—it’s unfortunate, but this is like
part of my sentence,” she said. “Like I don’t
deserve any better.”</p>
<p>In response to the allegations contained in the
recent filings by incarcerated women, Thomas Mailey,
a spokesperson for the New York State Department of
Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), told
The Appeal that while he could not offer comment on
possible or pending litigation, the department “has
zero tolerance for sexual abuse, sexual harassment,
and unauthorized relationships.”</p>
<p>Brown’s story is not atypical.</p>
<p>At first, Brown was flattered by the lieutenant’s
attention, which she said made her feel, briefly,
“normal.” But she was also disturbed by how he
followed her to work and ordered her to spend entire
days in his office. At the time, she wanted to see
herself as a willing participant. In hindsight,
Brown says she was “coasting” through life on a
dissociative autopilot, a technique she developed
after surviving childhood abuse.</p>
<p>“I was an unwitting victim, which makes it even
worse,” she said. “I would rather have known that I
had been victimized because then I could have
grieved. I could have been angry.”</p>
<p>Custodial sexual abuse has been common in prisons
since their inception. Some women agree to sexual
interactions out of fear or even loneliness; others
to obtain essential goods like food or cigarettes.
But the bestowal of these favors, known as grooming,
opens women up to an exchange over which they have
no control. In 1996, New York state passed a law
formally declaring that prisoners are <a
href="https://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/article130.php#p130.05"
moz-do-not-send="true">legally unable to consent</a>
to sexual contact with staff.</p>
<p>“A woman who is incarcerated cannot escape her
abuser,” said Anna Kull, a lawyer with Levy
Konigsberg, a law firm filing numerous ASA claims
this year.</p>
<p>In 2003, Congress unanimously passed the Prison
Rape Elimination Act (PREA). PREA was designed to
target the culture of sexual abuse in U.S.
prisons—the law created an exhaustive national
standard of reforms to prevent and address prison
rape both among prisoners and by prison staff. PREA
theoretically stipulates that prisoners must be able
to report abuse by guards to third parties. But the
women who spoke with The Appeal consistently said
there was no way to bypass staff members, who can
quickly put up roadblocks if they don’t want
allegations aired.</p>
<p>And while PREA created a set of guidelines for
prison systems to follow, it did not give imprisoned
people the right to sue if an abuser or correctional
department violates the law.</p>
<p>Facilities <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/opinion/prison-rape-sexual-violence.html?searchResultPosition=9"
moz-do-not-send="true">frequently pass</a> PREA
audits, even when facing <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2022/11/03/new-york-prison-sexual-assault-prea/"
moz-do-not-send="true">public allegations</a> of
abuse. Albion Correctional Facility, for example,
received a glowing <a
href="https://doccs.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2020/10/albion-correctional-facility-prea-report-final-9.15.2020.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">PREA audit</a> in 2020. The
auditor reported that the facility met or exceeded
all standards, including, in the latter category,
“zero tolerance for sexual abuse and sexual
harassment” and “agency protection against
retaliation.” But when representatives from the
Correctional Association of New York (CANY), an
independent organization that monitors and provides
oversight of state prisons, <a
href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b2c07e2a9e02851fb387477/t/63b4d1b1abb180210e46a28d/1672794549742/CANY_Briefing-Albion-01032023.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">visited Albion in 2022</a>,
imprisoned people informed them that guards had
created a culture of widespread sexual abuse and
retaliation. When CANY contacted DOCCS about the
allegations, the department cited the 2020 PREA
audit in its defense.</p>
<p>Separately, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed
the ASA into effect in May 2022 as part of a spate
of new <a
href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/publications/litigation-news/featured-articles/2020/new-state-laws-expand-workplace-protections-sexual-harassment-victims/"
moz-do-not-send="true">national</a> <a
href="https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/california-and-new-york-to-open-one-4820323/"
moz-do-not-send="true">laws</a> inspired by the
#MeToo movement. Hochul referenced the anti-sexual
abuse campaign when she signed the law.</p>
<p>“To those who thought they got away with horrific
crimes they committed, I just have one message: Your
time is up,” she <a
href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/24/us/new-york-adult-survivors-law/index.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">said</a>. The law formally
took effect in November.</p>
<p>The ASA does not only target individual abusers.
Like New York’s <a
href="https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/in-the-news/anna-m-kaplan/first-wave-lawsuits-hits-ny-opens-door-old-sex-abuse-claims"
moz-do-not-send="true">2019 Child Victims Act</a>,
the law allows survivors to sue institutions—or for
women in prison, the state—and in doing so, offers
an opportunity to address systemic sexual abuse.</p>
<p>The ASA does not explicitly mention imprisoned
people, but publicity around the ASA has focused on
women sexually abused by staff in the New York State
prison system. Thus far, all available ASA claims
involving incarcerated people have come from women’s
facilities. Custodial abuse is not unique to women,
though a recent government survey found that <a
href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/sisvraca1618_sum.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">two-thirds of victims who
experience sexual misconduct or harassment by
prison staff are women</a>.</p>
<p>In November 2022, the law firm Slater Slater
Schulman <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/16/nyregion/new-york-prison-sex-abuse.html?smid=tw-share"
moz-do-not-send="true">told the New York Times</a>
they expected to file at least 750 claims for
clients abused in prison. In February, law firm Levy
Konigsberg told The Appeal that they plan to file at
least 250 more. Claimants have alleged abuse in most
of the state’s women’s prisons. Many allege abuse at
multiple facilities, and some women, incarcerated
years or even decades apart, allege abuse by the
same corrections officers.</p>
<p>“I think I was definitely taken aback by the
similarities of their stories,” Kull said. “Women
who don’t know each other, who have never spoken to
each other, who have come from all walks of life,
but have had very startlingly similar experiences at
these facilities.”</p>
<p>While the ASA allows survivors to bring sexual
abuse claims, it doesn’t make it any easier for
those claims to succeed. And incarcerated survivors
have historically struggled to be taken seriously.
Past court claims have tended to be successful when
victims obtained <a
href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2020/jan/9/rikers-prisoner-smuggles-dna-evidence-rape-out-jail-500000-settlement/"
moz-do-not-send="true">DNA evidence</a>.</p>
<p>The ASA claims appear to confirm decades of
official reports describing systemic sexual abuse
and staff impunity in the state’s women’s prisons.
The most recent, which documented sexual abuse and
retaliation at Albion Correctional Facility, was
published by CANY in <a
href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b2c07e2a9e02851fb387477/t/63b4d1b1abb180210e46a28d/1672794549742/CANY_Briefing-Albion-01032023.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">January 2023</a>.</p>
<p>“Sexual abuse is preventable,” said Kim Shayo
Buchanan, a legal academic who has <a
href="https://gould.usc.edu/assets/docs/Impunity.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">written about</a> systemic
sexual abuse in prison and currently serves as the
Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Policing
Equity in New York. “If it’s common for guards to be
having sex with [prisoners], that is a choice that
the institution has made.”</p>
<hr role="divider">
<p>A significant number of ASA claims filed thus far
involve Bayview Correctional Facility, a small
prison for women in Manhattan that <a
href="https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/empty-prison-in-chelsea-is-now-a-valuable-piece-of-real-estate/"
moz-do-not-send="true">was closed</a> in 2012. A <a
href="https://citylimits.org/2011/05/03/male-guards-female-inmates-and-sexual-abuse-in-nys-prisons/"
moz-do-not-send="true">2008-2009 federal survey</a>
found that Bayview had one of the highest rates of
sexual abuse by staff in the country, a problem that
was identified by CANY <a
href="https://sssfirm.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1985-Neglected-Population_-Women-Prisoners-at-Bayview.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">as early as 1985</a>.</p>
<p>One woman, listed as LK DOE 21 in legal filings,
was incarcerated at Bayview between 1993 and 1994.
She said she had run-ins with a corrections officer
who frequently commented on the size of her breasts.
One day, the guard entered her room. ”The rules
were, when an officer enters the floor or comes to
make rounds on the floor, he’s supposed to say,
‘Male officer on duty,'” she told The Appeal.
Instead, he showed her a piece of paper. “It was a
ticket,” she said. “And he asked me to suck his
dick.”</p>
<p>Not wanting to jeopardize her chance for early
release or be sent away from Bayview, where her
grandmother could visit her, DOE 21 did as the
officer told her. DOE 21, who says she was also
abused by a doctor at Taconic Correctional Facility,
told The Appeal she had only spoken of the encounter
twice before.</p>
<p>“I don’t like to talk about it,” she said. “It
disgusts me. Every time I think about it, I just get
tears in my eyes. You don’t even know what goes
through me.”</p>
<p>The guard continued to grope and fondle DOE 21
throughout her time at Bayview, but she also
believed he was abusing others. Her suspicions were
not unfounded: Multiple other women’s claims, across
many years, describe the same officer entering
women’s rooms while they were sleeping or cornering
women in secluded areas like the stairwell or the
officer’s bathroom.</p>
<p>Julie Herrnkind was transferred to Albion in 2019
and says she witnessed a woman performing oral sex
on a guard at his desk on one of her first days at
the facility. She also says that she was sexually
harassed by a different guard while she was on
suicide watch. Herrnkind, a rape survivor, informed
two prison employees—the PREA Deputy, who is charged
with ensuring PREA compliance, and the PREA Captain,
who monitors against retaliation—about the incident.
She emphasized that the officer was a man, a clear <a
href="https://doccs.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2022/11/4101.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">breach of DOCCS protocol</a>.
Herrnkind approached the PREA Deputy to submit a
report, but the PREA Captain cut her off, telling
her she couldn’t.</p>
<p>“Then what am I gonna do?” Herrnkind asked. “You’re
gonna learn how to jail at Albion,” the PREA Captain
said.</p>
<p>Another woman, listed as LK DOE 26, was 19 when she
arrived at Albion in 2004. She told The Appeal that
the “system within a system” was clear to her early
on.</p>
<p>“We always called it a system within a system
because Albion had their own rules,” she said.
“Every jail has their own rules, and their own
manner of handling situations.” She noticed that
some guards cared less about rules than others, “and
it was usually the same officers that would cross
their lines or boundaries,” flirting with the women
or making comments about their bodies.</p>
<p>The woman says one such officer assaulted her in
2008 after locking her between double doors where
she worked in the library. Like most officers, this
guard roamed freely. DOE 26 says there was nowhere
in the facility where she felt safe.</p>
<p>“There were times that I would be in the bathroom,
and I would hear the door open, like another officer
coming in and like, my heart would begin to race
because like, if he knows I’m in the bathroom, he
can just come in,” she said.</p>
<p>LK DOE 31, who was at Albion between 2001 and 2003,
cited the same employee in her claim. The man
brought her cigarettes and, later, alcohol. But as
their interaction escalated and became sexual, DOE
31 realized the danger of her position.</p>
<p>“It was so tricky,” she said. “Let’s say you do
something wrong now, he could easily have my urine
pulled. For the same alcohol that he bought for me.”</p>
<p>Despite the ASA’s enactment, incarcerated women
will, for the time being, continue to contend with
the ongoing institutionalized sexual abuse that
existing claims describe. The claims—corroborated by
official reports—cast doubt on the adequacy of
current protection measures and indicate that rules
are arbitrarily enforced. This information,
advocates say, will only be valuable if policymakers
and the public choose to act on it.</p>
<p>But, in addition to the legal hurdles the women
coming forward now face, they also must continue to
fight society’s stigmas against the incarcerated.
The challenge, Liguori, of New Hour, said, is that
“most everyday people don’t really want to find a
way to identify in any way with women in prison.”</p>
<p>In court, formerly incarcerated survivors will also
face racial and <a
href="https://theappeal.org/new-york-prison-package-ban-women/"
moz-do-not-send="true">gender biases</a> that may
have contributed to their incarceration, as <a
href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023women.html"
moz-do-not-send="true">Black, Indigenous and queer
women are overrepresented</a> in the prison
population.</p>
<p>“Whatever the law says, gender normative
expectations and racial biases are going to shape
the perception of whether what happened to them
counts as sexual abuse,” Buchanan said. “That being
said, the only way to change that is for people to
insist on their full humanity.”</p>
<p>Despite these challenges, women like Brown see the
ASA as their first genuine opportunity to speak out.</p>
<p>“The #MeToo movement didn’t exist here,” she said.
“And now it does. Yeah, ‘Me too.’ Because, you know,
we’ve been hearing about people having legal
recourse for abuse that they sustained at the hands
of X, Y and Z. But that branch has never been
extended to us here.”</p>
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