The Torrance County, N.M. Detention Facility led all the nation’s local jails in sexual victimization, according to a report by the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
WASHINGTON — Torrance County Detention Facility personnel will be interviewed by three panelists at a public hearing in Washington, D.C., to understand why sexual victimization rates at the correctional facility are so high.
“It’s really about gathering information,” said Paige Harrison, a statistician with the Department of Justice.
Personnel from several correctional facilities will give testimony at the hearings.
The Torrance County Detention Facility led all the nation’s local jails in sexual victimization, according to a report by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The department’s special report was released in June and found the facility recorded the highest overall rate of sexual victimization at 13.4 percent compared to a national average of 3.2 percent, Allen J. Beck, principal author of the report and senior bureau statistical advisor, said in an earlier interview.
Sexual victimization is considered by the report to be all types of sexual activity, including inmateon-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts and abusive sexual contact or unwanted touching. It also includes both willing and unwilling sexual activity with staff, according to a Justice Department press release.
The Review Panel on Prison Rape hearings will take place at the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs Building main conference room in Washington, D.C., from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
The public can attend the hearing but must present photo identification to gain entrance.
Torrance County Detention Facility staff will be attending the hearing in D.C. on Tuesday.
“Facility management and staff are cooperating fully and will comment (in the) future once the hearing is complete,” a CCA memo said.
The three panelists on the Review Panel on Prison Rape are Gwendolyn Chunn, Carroll Ann Ellis and Steven T. McFarland, who were appointed by the U.S. Attorney General and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Panelists are responsible for collecting evidence to identify “common characteristics, not only of victims and perpetrators of prison rape, but also of prisons and prison systems with a high incidence of prison rape and those that have been successful in deterring prison rape,” said information on the Department of Justice Web site.
According to Harrison, the three panelists will sit at the front of a hearing room and ask facility personnel some predetermined questions and some impromptu questions. The hearing will be recorded by a stenographer. Likely in attendance will be panelists, other federal personnel, media and correctional facility personnel including some correctional facility officers and the warden. The panel has held three hearings and has scheduled four more.
Copyright 2008 Albuquerque Journal