Disappeared News

by Larry Geller

Kat Brady, long-time advocate for prisoners and coordinator of the  Community Alliance on Prisons, sends out periodic emails with news and links to relevant articles. Last week she reported sex assaults at the Otter Creek Correctional Center in Kentucky.

Today Kat reports more sex assaults at the same facility.

Community Alliance on Prisons has received a letter listing the names of 26 Hawai`i and Kentucky women who have allegedly been sexually assaulted at Otter Creek Correctional Center where Hawai`i has 165 women imprisoned.

The list includes not only the names of the 26 women assaulted, but the names of their 17 alleged perpetrators. One of the women was raped while she was in ‘medical segregation’ in the back of the medical unit while the nurses were dispensing medication in the front of the unit. The material received by Community Alliance on Prisons includes a full accounting of the multiple assaults one woman suffered at the hands of an adult corrections officer.

Hawai`i’s women have suffered sex assaults at private prison facilities in McCloud, OK, Brush, CO, and now Wheelwright, KY, where one of the alleged perpetrators was the prison chaplain.

She adds:

“Sex assault is never consensual between the keeper and the kept. This is an outrage and every taxpayer should be questioning how their hard-earned dollars are being spent. The state is responsible for the care and custody of every person sentenced under Hawai`i law, even if the individual is shipped thousands of miles from home into the hands of prison profiteers,”

There will be a press conference held by Community Alliance on Prisons and Myles Breiner, the attorney representing two of the Hawaii women, tomorrow, Friday, July 10 near the statue of Queen Liliuokalani between Iolani Palace and the State Capitol. Let’s see if the commercial media pick up this story—as they should.

Permalink posted by Larry @ 7/09/2009 09:20:00 PM