The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), alleging that corrections officers at the United States Penitentiary (USP) Canaan brutally assaulted, sexually abused, and placed an incarcerated man with known epilepsy for about 40 hours near-naked in restraints, without food or water, and laying in urine and feces, while he had a seizure.
Federal commission highlights harms and civil rights violations for women in prison
February 26, 2020 | Philadelphia Inquirer | Samantha Melamed
When Naomi Blount was sentenced to the State Correctional Institution Muncy in 1982, there were maybe 300 or 400 women there, and she had a cell to herself.
“Then as the years passed by and the population stated growing, that’s when they started doubling us up — and then quadrupling us up," said Blount, a former lifer who received commutation after 37 years and now works for the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons.
What she witnessed firsthand was a 600% increase in the female prison population in Pennsylvania — a trend mirrored in many other parts of the country.
A report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released Wednesday found that prisons around the country have failed to manage that growth in a way that protects female prisoners and serves their needs.
Despite federal reforms, including the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), “incarcerated women continue to experience physical and psychological safety harms while incarcerated and insufficient satisfaction of their constitutional rights,” the commission noted.
It found that women are subjected to disproportionately harsh punishments in prison, frequently lack access to the same programs and services available to men, and risk alienation from their families or even losing parental rights.
And, the commission concluded, “sexual abuse and rape remain prevalent against women in prison.” It noted that PREA required the establishment of a prison-rape review panel that would hold annual public hearings; the panel has not met since 2014.
2019 Annual Report from the frontlines of the fight for prisoner's rights
2019 was an exceptional year for the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. We are on the frontlines every day working to ensure that people behind bars are afforded their constitutional rights and we challenge the system when these rights are violated. In 2019 year alone PILP won a groundbreaking ruling for immigrants’ rights at ICE facilities, secured settlements and policy change for women who were sexually abused, held an institution accountable for inhumane, punitive solitary confinement, and won a class action gender discrimination case.
Read more about our work safeguarding prisoners’ rights, our dedicated staff, and how you can get involved HERE
Jury finds Berks County guilty of gender discrimination.
November 20, 2019 | Reading Eagle | Karen Shuey
The federal trial centered on allegations that women assigned trusty status were treated differently than men who were housed at the Berks County Reentry Center.
A federal jury last week found that Berks County violated the constitutional rights of women assigned trusty status incarcerated at the Berks County Prison by denying them the same access to furloughs as men who hold the same status.
The case centered around a lawsuit filed by former inmates Theresa Victory and Alice Velazquez-Diaz, alleging that women assigned trusty status are treated differently than men who hold the same status and are housed at the Berks County Reentry Center. The action aimed to provide female trusty inmates at the prison the same freedoms and opportunities given to their male counterparts.
At the conclusion of a weeklong trial in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, a jury of eight found that the two women were subjected to discrimination claims under the 14th Amendment. In addition, the jury awarded $2,800 in compensatory damages to Victory, who has since married and changed her name to Theresa Bohning, finding that the discriminatory treatment caused her harm.
Attorney Su Ming Yeh of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which represented the women, applauded the outcome of the trial.
"We are pleased that the jury recognized that Berks County was refusing to provide equal opportunities to incarcerated women in connecting with their families and preparing for reentry back into society," Yeh said in a press release.
VICTORY V BERKS COUNTY: Order and Findings of Fact & Conclusions of Law. Berks County must not treat the lowest risk Trusty inmates differently "based on their chromosomes"
January 15, 2019
Federal Judge Kearney ruled in favor of our client Theresa A. Victory stating that Berks County must allow her the same freedom of movement and opportunities provided to her male counterparts at the Berks County Community Reentry Center by Friday, January 18, 2019. These include 13 hours outside her cell when she is at the prison, no lock on her cell during, the evening and direct access to the rehabilitative programs she wishes to attend in the re-entry center.
Judge Kearney stated that “We find Berks County does not adequately justify its reasons for this substantially different treatment of lowest risk Trusty inmates working in our community on work release based on their chromosomes.” and “After too long, Berks County must act now to mitigate further harm to Ms. Victory and ensure her equal protection under the Law, without retaliating against her . . . because Berks County now needs to treat men and women Trusty inmates in the same manner.”
The Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project is representing Ms. Victory in this class action lawsuit filed on behalf of fifteen female work release and Trusty inmates.
Migrant Women Who Were Sexually Assaulted in ICE Detention Are Telling Their Stories
July 17, 2018 | Prachi Gupta | Jezebel
In 2014, after fleeing from a partner who raped and beat her in Honduras, a woman identified as “E.D.” was sent with her toddler to a family detention center in Pennsylvania where she was sexually assaulted repeatedly by a guard
“I didn’t know how to refuse because he told me that I was going to be deported,” she told the New York Times. “I was at a jail and he was a migration officer. It’s like they order you to do something and you have to do it.”
The officer, Daniel Sharkey, later pled guilty to institutional sexual assault. What’s rare about E.D.’s story is not, unfortunately, that an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Officer abused a woman in detention. It’s rare that he was prosecuted for it.
Sexual Assault Inside ICE Detention: 2 Survivors Tell Their Stories
July 17, 2018 | Emily Kassie | The New York Times
It was an early morning in May when Maria was released from the T. Don Hutto Residential Detention Center in Texas. She had been granted bond and was permitted to stay with her brother in Washington D.C. while her asylum case was pending.
After gathering her belongings, she was escorted to a loading area fenced with razor wire and placed into a cage inside a van. The driver was a male guard named Donald Dunn. Shortly after leaving Hutto, Dunn pulled off the road.
“He grabbed my breasts … He put his hands in my pants and he touched my private parts,” she said. “He touched me again inside the van, and my hands were tied. And he started masturbating.”
'I felt like a caged animal.' Pa. woman claims jail illegally shackled her during labor
May 10, 2018 | Philadelphia Daily News | Samantha Melamed
Athena Remlinger was supposed to go to court on Oct. 17, 2017. She expected to be sentenced to time served on charges that she participated in a robbery. It was a relief: She was pushing nine months pregnant, and wanted to be home from jail in time to give birth.
Instead, her public defender told her the court date was canceled. The Lebanon County Correctional Facility had decided to induce labor two weeks early — for staffing reasons, she claims she was told.
Though Remlinger pleaded with correctional, and then medical, officials to let her carry her baby to term, they took her to Hershey Medical Center, shackled her to a rocking chair, and gave her Pitocin, a drug that induces labor, she claims in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Middle District.