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detnews.com/2005/specialreport/0505/24/A01-191652.htm
Over time, state lawmakers limit inmates' right to sue, kill fact-finding office.
By Norman Sinclair, Melvin Claxton and Ronald J. Hansen / The Detroit News
Lewis
Robinson
Bigbee
A tumultuous decade for state, female inmates
1995 -- The U.S. Justice Department concludes Michigan is violating the constitutional rights of its female inmates.
1996 -- Female inmates file two lawsuits against the Department of Corrections, alleging rampant sexual abuse by prison staff.
1997 -- The Justice Department sues the state over the abuse problem.
1998 -- Gov. John Engler refuses to allow a United Nations investigator to inspect the state's female prisons.
1999
March -- The state settles the Justice Department case by promising sweeping reforms.
October -- The Legislature passes a law that requires inmates to prove lasting physical harm to collect damages.
December -- Legislators amend the Michigan Civil Rights Act to exclude inmates from those whom the law protects beginning in March 2000.
2000 -- The state promises additional changes and pays $3.8 million to settle one of the abuse suits, which involved 30 female inmates. The second suit, involving 440 inmates, is still pending.
2003 --The Legislature closes the office of the Legislative Corrections Ombudsman, which once investigated inmate complaints.
February 2005 -- The Michigan Court of Appeals upholds the changes to the civil rights law, holding that women who claim abuse behind bars after March 2000 are not covered.
About this series
TODAY
Faced with mounting lawsuits by female inmates over abuse, Michigan legislators have written prisoners out of the state's civil rights law. This could block inmates' rights to seek damages even in cases of rape.
SUNDAY
Despite pledges of prison reforms by the state, sexual abuse of female inmates remains a major problem. The failure of the Michigan Department of Corrections to stamp out sexual misconduct by guards puts the state's 2,000 female prisoners at risk.
MONDAY
Corrections Department hiring practices have allowed convicted criminals to keep jobs as prison guards. Some went on to sexually abuse female prisoners.
Protecting prisoners
Does the state of Michigan do enough to protect female prison inmates from sexual abuse?
Yes
No
Get results and comments
Comment on this story
Send this story to a friend
Get Home Delivery
Michigan lawmakers and prison officials have stymied investigations of sexual abuse in women's prisons, stifled inmate complaints and stripped away the rights of assaulted prisoners to sue for damages, a five-month investigation by The Detroit News found.
Just two years ago, the Legislature closed its Corrections Ombudsman Office, which had investigated prisoner complaints, including claims of sexual assault. It was the final blow to an office -- created by legislators in 1975 to be an independent fact finder -- that had been slowly weakened over the years.
The Legislature earlier had restricted the investigative powers of the Ombudsman Office and cut its staff. The ombudsman, once able to open a probe on the words of an inmate alone, was allowed only to do so upon a legislator's request.
Shuttering the ombudsman's office and other actions by Michigan officials over the past decade have helped make sexual abuse an intractable problem in the state's female prisons. These policies continued to place the state's 2,000 female inmates in jeopardy, The News found.
The problem is compounded by the low priority given to the prosecution of guards charged with sexually abusing prisoners. And the responsibility for doing so is increasingly left to the Attorney General's Office, the same agency fighting lawsuits against the department by women victimized by guards.
In the meantime, the number of sexual abuse complaints against guards by female inmates is slightly higher than it was a decade ago when federal officials first identified Michigan's prisons as a problem, according to The News analysis of Corrections records turned over in a class-action lawsuit against the department.
The actions of state lawmakers have ensured that there are fewer legal remedies for current and future victims of sexual abuse.
Legislators took away inmates' right to sue under Michigan's Civil Rights Act in 1999. That year, they also changed the law to require prisoners to prove lasting physical injury from an assault to obtain damages in court.
Groping or even rape that doesn't cause such injuries, no matter how frequent or devastating, is unlikely to result in a judgment under the law, civil rights lawyers say.
"If you stood the women up naked like the guy did in Abu Ghraib, under the law in Michigan, they couldn't make a claim," said Deborah Labelle, the lead lawyer in a 9-year-old class-action suit against the department. She argues that the law is unconstitutional
No incentive for action
Inmate lawsuits, as well as legal action by the U.S. Justice Department, were instrumental in getting the Michigan Department of Corrections to pledge reforms five years ago to end sexual abuse of female prisoners.
Corrections officials insist they have made the changes and now have a "zero tolerance" policy toward abuse. But several of the promised reforms were never fully implemented.
With less threat from lawsuits, say civil rights lawyers, the Corrections Department has little incentive to take further action.
In February, the state's Appeals Court upheld the change in the civil rights law that blocked prisoners from suing. The law could wipe out all claims for about 150 of the more than 440 inmates involved in a current class-action lawsuit.
"By stripping imprisoned women of this basic civil right, the state has emboldened sexual predators who may be attracted to prison work," said Michael Pitt, a lawyer in one of the class-action lawsuits. "The state has turned its back on our mothers, sisters and daughters at a time when they are most vulnerable and unable to protect themselves from the men the state hired to oversee them."
Four of the women who could lose their claims are in one pending criminal case in Branch County against a former prison warehouse quartermaster, Steven L. Davis.
Davis, 44, is charged with five counts of criminal sexual misconduct involving five women, and one count of indecent exposure.
In their allegations, the five inmates, Janet Lastocy, Latonya Lewis, Tina Moore, Waltilia Robinson and Patty Bigbee, told State Police similar stories of sexual assaults by Davis from May 1998 to June 2000. Two of the women said he forced them to perform oral sex. The others said he fondled them or forced them to touch his genitals.
Davis was scheduled for trial in Branch County Circuit Court in March but failed to show up and is now a fugitive.
Problems rise; a quick fix
When Michigan lawmakers amended the state's Civil Rights Act five years ago, they argued that the 23-year-old law was never intended to apply to inmates.
Then-Sen. Virgil Smith, D-Detroit, condemned the legislators for trying to write inmates out of the civil rights law.
"There should be some element of decency that a woman, even if she is locked up in prison, should expect from the state of Michigan," he said at the time. "It is absolutely atrocious that they cannot even go to the bathroom without having their privacy interfered with."
Rep. William Van Regenmorter, R-Georgetown Township, who was a senator at the time, defended the changes.
"We were getting a lot of genuinely frivolous lawsuits," Van Regenmorter said of amending the civil rights law and passing the prison litigation reform law. "It was a response to that."
At the time of the vote, Van Regenmorter noted that Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who was then the attorney general, supported changing the law.
"The civil rights of prisoners are fully addressed by existing federal legislation," Granholm's top deputy wrote in a letter. "The current system merely harms the taxpayer."
Granholm's spokeswoman, Liz Boyd, said the governor stands by the position she took five years ago favoring amending the law.
The law went into effect in March 2000. In April 2001, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights urged Engler to consider reversing the new law. He made no changes before leaving office in January 2003. Engler, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Supporters of both law changes maintain it reduces the cost of defending the state from frivolous prisoner lawsuits and that inmates still have legal protections under federal laws. But federal courts offer limited recourse for inmates.
In 1995, President Clinton signed the Prison Litigation Reform Act into law. Like the current Michigan law, inmates must prove a physical injury to collect for any mental or emotional harm in federal court.
A legacy of abuse
For more than a decade, state lawmakers have blocked efforts to expose sexual abuse in Michigan prisons.
In 1994, Engler refused to allow federal authorities to view most of the state's facilities for women, saying a probe wasn't needed.
By March 1995, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division concluded the state was violating the constitutional rights of female inmates. Specifically, they found there were rapes and other sexual abuse. The state dismissed the federal probe as "distorted."
But the federal authorities were not alone in their assessment. Human Rights Watch, an international organization based in New York City, concurred with the findings of the federal inquiry in a 1996 report.
The organization found "a significant gap exists between (the Michigan Department of Corrections') policy and its practice with respect to sexual misconduct." Human Rights Watch followed up in September 1998 with another report noting the high levels of retaliation against inmates.
The News investigation found similar conditions still exist.
In June 1998, the United Nations wanted to examine the state's female prisons as part of a report on conditions for women in U.S. prisons generally. The day before the scheduled visit, Engler refused to allow the U.N. investigator to enter the prisons.
"I view the United Nations as an unwitting tool in the Justice Department's agenda to discredit the State of Michigan," he wrote.
Reduced public scrutiny
Without cooperation from state officials, the U.N. investigator still met with former inmates, prison guards and talked to current prisoners.
The investigator said she "was astonished that the prisons that she saw on video in Michigan and the prison that she toured in Minnesota were in the same country."
In addition to resisting investigations, in 2000 the state adopted a more restrictive media policy and limited public access to inmates and facilities. The policy, which bars cameras and tape recorders, remains in effect.
The reduced public scrutiny, coupled with law changes, has left prisoners feeling bitter and helpless.
"I don't like the fact that we're treated as if we're not human because we committed a crime," said Robinson, one of the inmates in the Davis case. "They had a responsibility to protect me, and they didn't. What are we to do, stay stringed out on psych drugs for the rest of our lives?"
You can reach Norman Sinclair at (313) 222-2034 or nsinclair@detnews.com.
Over time, state lawmakers limit inmates' right to sue, kill fact-finding office.
By Norman Sinclair, Melvin Claxton and Ronald J. Hansen / The Detroit News
Lewis
Robinson
Bigbee
A tumultuous decade for state, female inmates
1995 -- The U.S. Justice Department concludes Michigan is violating the constitutional rights of its female inmates.
1996 -- Female inmates file two lawsuits against the Department of Corrections, alleging rampant sexual abuse by prison staff.
1997 -- The Justice Department sues the state over the abuse problem.
1998 -- Gov. John Engler refuses to allow a United Nations investigator to inspect the state's female prisons.
1999
March -- The state settles the Justice Department case by promising sweeping reforms.
October -- The Legislature passes a law that requires inmates to prove lasting physical harm to collect damages.
December -- Legislators amend the Michigan Civil Rights Act to exclude inmates from those whom the law protects beginning in March 2000.
2000 -- The state promises additional changes and pays $3.8 million to settle one of the abuse suits, which involved 30 female inmates. The second suit, involving 440 inmates, is still pending.
2003 --The Legislature closes the office of the Legislative Corrections Ombudsman, which once investigated inmate complaints.
February 2005 -- The Michigan Court of Appeals upholds the changes to the civil rights law, holding that women who claim abuse behind bars after March 2000 are not covered.
About this series
TODAY
Faced with mounting lawsuits by female inmates over abuse, Michigan legislators have written prisoners out of the state's civil rights law. This could block inmates' rights to seek damages even in cases of rape.
SUNDAY
Despite pledges of prison reforms by the state, sexual abuse of female inmates remains a major problem. The failure of the Michigan Department of Corrections to stamp out sexual misconduct by guards puts the state's 2,000 female prisoners at risk.
MONDAY
Corrections Department hiring practices have allowed convicted criminals to keep jobs as prison guards. Some went on to sexually abuse female prisoners.
Protecting prisoners
Does the state of Michigan do enough to protect female prison inmates from sexual abuse?
Yes
No
Get results and comments
Comment on this story
Send this story to a friend
Get Home Delivery
Michigan lawmakers and prison officials have stymied investigations of sexual abuse in women's prisons, stifled inmate complaints and stripped away the rights of assaulted prisoners to sue for damages, a five-month investigation by The Detroit News found.
Just two years ago, the Legislature closed its Corrections Ombudsman Office, which had investigated prisoner complaints, including claims of sexual assault. It was the final blow to an office -- created by legislators in 1975 to be an independent fact finder -- that had been slowly weakened over the years.
The Legislature earlier had restricted the investigative powers of the Ombudsman Office and cut its staff. The ombudsman, once able to open a probe on the words of an inmate alone, was allowed only to do so upon a legislator's request.
Shuttering the ombudsman's office and other actions by Michigan officials over the past decade have helped make sexual abuse an intractable problem in the state's female prisons. These policies continued to place the state's 2,000 female inmates in jeopardy, The News found.
The problem is compounded by the low priority given to the prosecution of guards charged with sexually abusing prisoners. And the responsibility for doing so is increasingly left to the Attorney General's Office, the same agency fighting lawsuits against the department by women victimized by guards.
In the meantime, the number of sexual abuse complaints against guards by female inmates is slightly higher than it was a decade ago when federal officials first identified Michigan's prisons as a problem, according to The News analysis of Corrections records turned over in a class-action lawsuit against the department.
The actions of state lawmakers have ensured that there are fewer legal remedies for current and future victims of sexual abuse.
Legislators took away inmates' right to sue under Michigan's Civil Rights Act in 1999. That year, they also changed the law to require prisoners to prove lasting physical injury from an assault to obtain damages in court.
Groping or even rape that doesn't cause such injuries, no matter how frequent or devastating, is unlikely to result in a judgment under the law, civil rights lawyers say.
"If you stood the women up naked like the guy did in Abu Ghraib, under the law in Michigan, they couldn't make a claim," said Deborah Labelle, the lead lawyer in a 9-year-old class-action suit against the department. She argues that the law is unconstitutional
No incentive for action
Inmate lawsuits, as well as legal action by the U.S. Justice Department, were instrumental in getting the Michigan Department of Corrections to pledge reforms five years ago to end sexual abuse of female prisoners.
Corrections officials insist they have made the changes and now have a "zero tolerance" policy toward abuse. But several of the promised reforms were never fully implemented.
With less threat from lawsuits, say civil rights lawyers, the Corrections Department has little incentive to take further action.
In February, the state's Appeals Court upheld the change in the civil rights law that blocked prisoners from suing. The law could wipe out all claims for about 150 of the more than 440 inmates involved in a current class-action lawsuit.
"By stripping imprisoned women of this basic civil right, the state has emboldened sexual predators who may be attracted to prison work," said Michael Pitt, a lawyer in one of the class-action lawsuits. "The state has turned its back on our mothers, sisters and daughters at a time when they are most vulnerable and unable to protect themselves from the men the state hired to oversee them."
Four of the women who could lose their claims are in one pending criminal case in Branch County against a former prison warehouse quartermaster, Steven L. Davis.
Davis, 44, is charged with five counts of criminal sexual misconduct involving five women, and one count of indecent exposure.
In their allegations, the five inmates, Janet Lastocy, Latonya Lewis, Tina Moore, Waltilia Robinson and Patty Bigbee, told State Police similar stories of sexual assaults by Davis from May 1998 to June 2000. Two of the women said he forced them to perform oral sex. The others said he fondled them or forced them to touch his genitals.
Davis was scheduled for trial in Branch County Circuit Court in March but failed to show up and is now a fugitive.
Problems rise; a quick fix
When Michigan lawmakers amended the state's Civil Rights Act five years ago, they argued that the 23-year-old law was never intended to apply to inmates.
Then-Sen. Virgil Smith, D-Detroit, condemned the legislators for trying to write inmates out of the civil rights law.
"There should be some element of decency that a woman, even if she is locked up in prison, should expect from the state of Michigan," he said at the time. "It is absolutely atrocious that they cannot even go to the bathroom without having their privacy interfered with."
Rep. William Van Regenmorter, R-Georgetown Township, who was a senator at the time, defended the changes.
"We were getting a lot of genuinely frivolous lawsuits," Van Regenmorter said of amending the civil rights law and passing the prison litigation reform law. "It was a response to that."
At the time of the vote, Van Regenmorter noted that Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who was then the attorney general, supported changing the law.
"The civil rights of prisoners are fully addressed by existing federal legislation," Granholm's top deputy wrote in a letter. "The current system merely harms the taxpayer."
Granholm's spokeswoman, Liz Boyd, said the governor stands by the position she took five years ago favoring amending the law.
The law went into effect in March 2000. In April 2001, the Michigan Department of Civil Rights urged Engler to consider reversing the new law. He made no changes before leaving office in January 2003. Engler, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Supporters of both law changes maintain it reduces the cost of defending the state from frivolous prisoner lawsuits and that inmates still have legal protections under federal laws. But federal courts offer limited recourse for inmates.
In 1995, President Clinton signed the Prison Litigation Reform Act into law. Like the current Michigan law, inmates must prove a physical injury to collect for any mental or emotional harm in federal court.
A legacy of abuse
For more than a decade, state lawmakers have blocked efforts to expose sexual abuse in Michigan prisons.
In 1994, Engler refused to allow federal authorities to view most of the state's facilities for women, saying a probe wasn't needed.
By March 1995, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division concluded the state was violating the constitutional rights of female inmates. Specifically, they found there were rapes and other sexual abuse. The state dismissed the federal probe as "distorted."
But the federal authorities were not alone in their assessment. Human Rights Watch, an international organization based in New York City, concurred with the findings of the federal inquiry in a 1996 report.
The organization found "a significant gap exists between (the Michigan Department of Corrections') policy and its practice with respect to sexual misconduct." Human Rights Watch followed up in September 1998 with another report noting the high levels of retaliation against inmates.
The News investigation found similar conditions still exist.
In June 1998, the United Nations wanted to examine the state's female prisons as part of a report on conditions for women in U.S. prisons generally. The day before the scheduled visit, Engler refused to allow the U.N. investigator to enter the prisons.
"I view the United Nations as an unwitting tool in the Justice Department's agenda to discredit the State of Michigan," he wrote.
Reduced public scrutiny
Without cooperation from state officials, the U.N. investigator still met with former inmates, prison guards and talked to current prisoners.
The investigator said she "was astonished that the prisons that she saw on video in Michigan and the prison that she toured in Minnesota were in the same country."
In addition to resisting investigations, in 2000 the state adopted a more restrictive media policy and limited public access to inmates and facilities. The policy, which bars cameras and tape recorders, remains in effect.
The reduced public scrutiny, coupled with law changes, has left prisoners feeling bitter and helpless.
"I don't like the fact that we're treated as if we're not human because we committed a crime," said Robinson, one of the inmates in the Davis case. "They had a responsibility to protect me, and they didn't. What are we to do, stay stringed out on psych drugs for the rest of our lives?"
You can reach Norman Sinclair at (313) 222-2034 or nsinclair@detnews.com.