BY SUSAN L. OPPAT
The Ann Arbor News
PLYMOUTH, Mich. — Several reports about conditions in Scott Correctional Facility in Plymouth and women’s prisons in the Michigan Department of Corrections in general were released in the 1990s that described horrific conditions.
A U.S. Department of Justice report filed in 1995 noted that investigators were not allowed to directly investigate allegations made by inmates, and that the “intentional lack of cooperation by Michigan ... officials’’ may have led to negative inferences that might have otherwise been mitigated.
Among the findings from interviews with about 100 inmates, were:
At least 20 incidents of sexual assault or serious harassment reported in Scott and one other facility from 1991-1993. Pregnancies resulted in some instances. One officer, the report stated, “matter-of factly advised us that there is frequent sexual activity.’'
Women were subjected to systematic “pat-downs’’ that included corrections officers groping women’s buttocks and genitals, pinching nipples, and rubbing their genitals against the women.
Nearly every interviewed inmate reported sexually aggressive acts by guards, including cornering them and pressing against them, guards exposing their genitals, and making lewd comments.
An “almost universal fear of retaliation’’ for filing grievances against corrections officers.
Inmates forced to stand nude with other inmates, in each other’s urine, while female corrections officers stood with their faces inches from the inmates’ genitals to watch the women provide urine samples for drug tests.
An unusually high rate of assaults between female inmates.
Medical treatment delayed or never provided. In one instance, a nurse told an inmate in severe pain to lie down in her cell. The inmate died two hours later of a heart attack. In another, a nurse refused to examine an inmate, six months pregnant, who had cramping and bleeding and delivered a stillborn child.
Unsanitary conditions, including roaches and rodents throughout the buildings, unsafe drinking water, and 90 women with access to four showers and eight toilets.
The Human Rights Watch, which investigates reports of torture all over the world, issued a book in 1996 citing women’s prisons in about six states, including Michigan, that systematically violate inmates’ rights.
Copyright 2008 Ann Arbor News