Florida federal prisons top sex-abuse list

The sexual abuse of federal inmates by federal prison workers is getting worse, and two of the top three trouble spots are in Florida, a Justice Department report shows.

The Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County ranks first, with 80 abuse allegations from 2001 to 2008. The federal prison in Tallahassee is third, with 67 in the same period.

The findings echo trends in the state of Florida's prison system, where few allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct against personnel result in prosecutions.

The report from the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General says 94 percent of cases handled by Bureau of Prisons investigators end with an inconclusive finding. Special agents with the inspector general's office had the best success rate. Still, 56 percent of their investigations result in inconclusive findings.

Troubling trend

Complaints of sexual misconduct have more than doubled, the study shows, rising 135 percent in the past eight years in 93 federal centers.

The report cites female federal prison workers in a disproportionate number of allegations. Women make up 27 percent of the Bureau of Prisons work force but were the subjects in 30 to 39 percent of allegations of sexual staff abuse and misconduct.

The inspector general's report takes the Bureau of Prisons to task for ineffective deterrence of sexual abuse by staff, and criticizes the U.S. Marshals Service for the absence of "a program for preventing, detecting, investigating, and addressing staff sexual abuse in its cell block and transportation operations."

During the study period, the inspector general's office counted 83 convictions after prosecution, 75 of which stemmed from guilty pleas and eight from trials.

The report recommends alternatives to "automatically isolating or transferring prisoners that allege sexual abuse," as well as updated training and improved oversight. It also calls for improvements in the way the U.S. Marshals Service handles sexual abuse cases.

The report also recommends better training for prosecutors.

Issues in state system

A 2004 investigation by News Channel 8 revealed that within the Florida Department of Corrections - which, like all state prison systems, generally houses more violent prisoners than federal prisons - complaints by female inmates seldom resulted in prosecution.

WFLA analyzed 468 complaints of harassment or sexual misconduct by Florida prison workers against female inmates between 1998 and 2003 and found only two cases that resulted in a successful prosecution.

In both cases, the inmates provided investigators with DNA evidence.

Herbert Jackson, a male nurse at Gadsen Correctional Facility in Quincy, went to prison for 18 months for having intercourse with a female inmate. She turned over a used condom to investigators.

The second case involved therapist Thomas Poppy. He was the subject of three investigations involving five female inmates at Hernando Correctional Institution in Brooksville when investigators recorded a therapy session with a female inmate. The inmate recovered DNA evidence after oral sex; Thomas received probation.

At the time, Florida's Department of Corrections did not track allegations of sexual abuse by prison staff and there were no rules against male officers observing female inmates during strip searches, showers or while they used the toilet.

Now, gender-based privacy rules are in place and state prison officials tabulate allegations of sexual misconduct as a requirement of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003.

State corrections spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff says there were more than 700 allegations of staff sexual misconduct at Florida's women's prisons between 2005 and 2008.

Of those, 635 were unsubstantiated, eight were substantiated and 29 were unfounded. Another 33 are the subject of ongoing investigations.

Rackleff says there is no data yet for 2009.