Sunshine Week
- What is Sunshine Week?
- KDOT still responding to SLT records request
- KU's chancellor search costs $162K
- Records request sheds light on drug interdictions
- Despite tight budget situation, legislative travel expenditures in 2010 higher than in 2009 — and the year’s not over
- Sexual misconduct in prisons an issue rising in visibility
Have an open records idea?
Is there an open record you would like to see? E-mail your ideas to Shaun Hittle.
Obtaining the information
What information and records were requested? Investigative reports of sexual misconduct reported in Kansas prisons or state-run juvenile detention centers for 2005 to 2009, including the resolution of those investigations.
Which agency? The Kansas Department of Corrections and the Juvenile Justice Authority.
How quickly did they respond to request? Responded to request within one day, and provided the requested information in a timely manner. Corrections officials responded quickly to additional requests for information.
How much did records cost? Records were provided free of charge.
Was any information from request denied? Yes. The actual investigative reports from the reported cases were not available under the Kansas Open Records Act.
Is this information currently accessible by the public? The information is not available online, and must be requested.
Note: This article is part of a weeklong series, running March 14 to March 20, honoring Sunshine Week.
An inmate who reports a sexual assault gets labeled a “snitch,” is considered weak, and faces an increased likelihood of further assault.
It’s those fears that prevent inmates from reporting sexual abuse to officials, said Cindy Struckman-Johnson, a psychologist and former member of the National Prison Rape Commission.
“Underreporting is an incredible issue,” she said, adding that official reporting numbers are not “a reflection of reality.”
According to numbers from confidential surveys, inmates and juveniles in Kansas correctional facilities are sexually victimized far more often than is reported.
Statistics obtained through a Kansas open records request show an average of one sexual misconduct report for every 100 Kansas inmates each year. That number jumps to more than six reports for every 100 juveniles in state detention every year.
But surveys — administered by the Bureau of Justice Statistics — found a 5 percent victimization rate in a 2007 survey of a Kansas prison, and about a 15 percent rate in a 2009 survey of Kansas’ two juvenile facilities.
Despite the gap, Russ Jennings, commissioner of the Juvenile Justice Authority, said there are multiple reporting options for victims, such as confidential reporting hotlines and complaint drop boxes in living units.
“There’s really a wide-open door for reporting,” he said. “We would like for every incident or concern to be reported.”
Regardless of efforts to increase reporting, there’s pressure to stay silent about sexual abuse, said Roger Werholtz, Kansas secretary of corrections.
“There is a very strong subculture within prisons in particular that discourages reporting,” he said. “If you’re doing that, you’re a snitch.”
Difficult to prove
For those cases that do get reported in Kansas facilities, few are ever substantiated. Of the 477 total allegations of sexual misconduct in Kansas prisons and juvenile facilities during four-year periods, only 65 were substantiated.
Jennings said proving allegations is a difficult task and urged caution when looking at the low rates.
“Honesty is always an issue,” Jennings said. “Are the youth being truthful? Are the employees being truthful?”
Werholtz said investigators within prisons thoroughly investigate allegations, but are often left with a lack of evidence.
“We try to come up with the best conclusion as to what occurred,” he said. But “there’s no way to successfully discipline if you don’t have corroborating evidence.”
Advocates acknowledge the challenges in investigating sexual misconduct behind bars.
“Finding evidence is extremely difficult,” Struckman-Johnson said. “It often comes down to ‘he said, she said.’”
Confronting the issue
A first step in reducing sexual violence in corrections is raising awareness about the problem, something that has traditionally been an uphill battle, Struckman-Johnson said.
“In the past, this hasn’t been a priority,” she said. “Inmates don’t want to talk about it. Administrators don’t want to talk about it.”
But there are numerous reasons for the public to care about sexual assaults in prisons, said Linda McFarlane, deputy executive director for the prisoner rights advocacy organization Just Detention International.
Sexual assaults in prisons make facilities more dangerous for both inmates and staff, and violence of any type undermines rehabilitation.
“It makes it more dangerous for the community,” she said.
Aside from practical reasons, McFarlane said, there are moral reasons to support reforms.
“It’s not part of the punishment,” she said. “No one deserves this.”
Werholtz said that eliminating sexual abuse in Kansas prisons would require “a serious investment of resources both in terms of staff, technology and facility redesign.” But pumping more money into prisons in a down economy is not something he anticipates happening.
“I don’t think you’re going to see huge leaps forward in this state or any other state for quite a while,” he said.
Comments
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Eride (anonymous) says…
I saw the head line and assumed this article was discussing sexual assaults behind bars not sexual assaults that occur in a prison.
Would it hurt you guys to use more exact language?
LadyJ (anonymous) says…
Seemed clear enough.
b_asinbeer (anonymous) says…
Was pretty clear to me.
cntrygrl (anonymous) says…
More than crystal!
bearded_gnome (anonymous) says…
“Finding evidence is extremely difficult,” Struckman-Johnson said. “It often comes down to ‘he said, she said.’”
---more like: "he said--he said."
***
Pywacket (anonymous) says…
Eride was making a joke! Didn't anyone get it? Behind bars.... such as, maybe, Free State, The Red Lyon, etc...... Geez, you guys! Snap to it!
Bearded--you got that right...
While I'd really love to care about these under-reported assaults on convicted criminals, I find I'm much more concerned about under-reported and under-solved sexual assaults on innocent women, children, and (occasionally) men in the community. When we get a handle on that, come back and see if we can raise a little more concern for what convicted pedophiles and the like are experiencing in prison--where they put themselves by their own actions.
I'm certainly not saying it "should" happen or that it represents justice. I'm only saying that our first obligation and concern should be to the crimevictims on the outside. We too often forget them in our rush to raise awareness of convicts' rights, plights, and general well-being.
As for the same problem among juveniles, that truly needs immediate attention and remediation--although it probably won't get that. Juveniles in detention theoretically still have a chance to turn their lives around, but that ain't gonna happen if they are traumatized and violated (on top of whatever other lousy experiences got them where they are).
consumer1 (anonymous) says…
Let's ask Matthew Jaeger, What say Matt? Getting any?
cntrygrl (anonymous) says…
Pywacket -
I really don't think E was making a joke. Seems to me that, and apparently a few others, that he was actually confused. How? I have no idea, but I think he was.
flux (anonymous) says…
Erdie got served!!
LadyJ (anonymous) says…
It might have been able to come off as a joke if it hadn't been for that last sentence.