We take all allegations of this type of behavior very seriously, and reported incidents are aggressively investigated by the Inspector General's Office. "The department does not tolerate any form of abuse. The Florida Department of Corrections, in a statement issued Wednesday, said it is committed to assisting the DOJ with the probe. They must think the allegations they are aware of are severe and enough to take this step.'' "This is indicative of the fact that there must be serious concerns about the facility because the DOJ does not undertake investigations lightly or based on scant evidence.
Lisa Graybill, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, called the DOJ involvement overdue. We invite everyone who may have a connection to Lowell to attend and share their experiences with us.'' "Your input and participation in the process is important. "Your voice is important to us,'' a flier said. In announcing the community meeting, the DOJ said it hoped inmates and their families would be forthcoming about the problems at Lowell.
#SEXUAL EXTORTION ALABAMA SERIES#
The Lowell investigation comes after years of complaints by inmates and activists, who organized in the aftermath of a 2015 Miami Herald investigation, "Beyond Punishment.'' The series included interviews with more than three dozen former and current inmates at Lowell who described being forced to have sex with officers just to obtain basic necessities such as soap, toilet paper and sanitary napkins. The probe found that Alabama had been on notice of the abuse for more than 18 years but had chosen to ignore them. The DOJ was especially critical of state corrections officials who "demonstrated a clear deliberate indifference to the harm and substantial risk of harm to women prisoners.'' Prison officials were criticized for failing to address the problems despite repeated complaints. It concluded that Tutwiler guards had violated prisoners' rights.Īt Tutwiler, DOJ found that inmates lived in an environment of repeated, open and forced sexual behavior by corrections officers. The DOJ reached an agreement with the state of Alabama and its corrections department calling for a series of reforms to protect inmates. Investigators are inviting former inmates and family members of current inmates to the meeting at the Marion Baptist Association in Ocala. "If findings are made of constitutional violations, they don't pull any punches,'' Abbate said.Īs part of the probe, the DOJ is holding a community meeting on Aug. focusing on Lowell's ability to protect prisoners from sexual abuse,'' Gore wrote. "We are obliged to determine whether there are systemic violations of the Constitution of the United States. Rick Scott, informing him, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and Julie Jones, secretary for the Department of Corrections, that the department had launched a federal probe into conditions at Lowell. Department of Justice, sent a letter to Florida Gov. In April, John Gore, acting attorney general for the U.S. Normally, at womens' prisons, you get one or two bad actors, but it seems that Lowell has a real cultural problem, and the Florida Department of Corrections, in general, has a huge cultural problem in the way they handle sexual abuse,'' said Julia Abbate, the former deputy chief in charge of corrections in DOJ's civil rights division.Ībbate, who is now national advocacy director for Just Detention International, a health and human rights organization that works to end sexual abuse in jails and prisons, said Lowell has been on the Justice Department's radar for several years. "It appears that Lowell has a huge problem with sexual abuse of prisoners. The Tutwiler investigation in Alabama mirrors what the Justice Department is now doing at Lowell Correctional Institution in Central Florida, where female inmates have complained for years about sexual, physical and mental abuse inflicted by corrections officers.
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