(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
(CN) Federal prosecutors accused Florida prison officials of failing to protect women inmates from sexual abuse by correctional officers in a searing report released Tuesday.
The Justice Department investigation report details beatings and rapes of female prisoners at Lowell Correctional Institution, located in Ocala. State prison officials neglected to address the crimes, despite “systemic” sexual abuse that goes back to at least 2006, according to the report.
Lowell is the largest women’s prison in the country and houses nearly 1,500 inmates.
Throughout its 36 pages, the report lists incidents of sexual abuse against prisoners by officers as recently as April.
(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
ATLANTA (CN) An attorney for a Georgia sheriff asked an 11th Circuit panel Wednesday to overturn an order ending a jail’s policy of holding mentally ill women in solitary confinement up to 24 hours a day in disturbing conditions.
Ashley Palmer of the Fulton County Attorney’s Office told a three-judge panel of the Atlanta-appeals court that the lower court overstepped its authority by requiring Fulton County Sheriff Theodore Jackson and South Fulton Municipal Regional Jail officials to offer mentally disabled prisoners held in solitary confinement at least four hours of out-of-cell time per day.