{"id":16972,"date":"2015-05-13T04:50:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T11:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=16972"},"modified":"2015-05-13T06:09:12","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T13:09:12","slug":"push-to-end-prison-rape-loses-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/push-to-end-prison-rape-loses-momentum\/","title":{"rendered":"Push to End Prison Rape Loses Momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"PassionStar\"<\/a>

Passion Star, a transgender inmate at the Barry B. Telford prison complex in New Boston, Tex. The scars are the result of a slashing by a gang member that required 36 stitches.<\/p><\/div>\n

by Deborah Sontag<\/em><\/p>\n

New Boston, TX (5-12-15) —<\/strong>\u00a0The inmate, dressed in prison whites with a shaved head and incongruously tender eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, entered the visiting room with her wrists joined as if she were handcuffed. At 31, she had spent her whole adult life behind bars, and it looked like a posture of habit.<\/p>\n

She introduced herself: \u201cMy given name at birth was Joshua Zollicoffer, but my preferred name is Passion Star.\u201d<\/p>\n

A transgender woman whose gender identity has been challenged by the Texas authorities, Ms. Star herself is challenging Texas\u2019 refusal to accept new national standards intended to eliminate rape in prison, which disproportionately affects gay and transgender prisoners. Last spring, Gov. Rick Perry declared in a letter<\/a> to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. that Texas had its own \u201csafe prisons program\u201d and did not need the \u201cunnecessarily cumbersome and costly\u201d intrusion of another federal mandate.<\/p>\n

Ms. Star, who says she is a victim of repeated sexual harassment, coercion, abuse and assault in Texas\u2019 maximum-security prisons for men, disagrees.<\/p>\n

\"PassionStar2\"<\/a>

Ms. Star accepted a plea deal of 20 years on a charge of aggravated kidnapping, the same deal as her former boyfriend and co-defendant. He was released two years ago.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cLook, I got 36 stitches and have scars on my face that prove the prisons are not safe and the current system does not work,\u201d she said. \u201cSomebody needs to be intrusive into this state\u2019s business. Because if somebody was intruding, probably these things would not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

After decades of societal indifference to prison rape, Congress, in a rare show of support for inmates\u2019 rights, unanimously passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act<\/a> in 2003, and Mr. Perry\u2019s predecessor as governor, President George W. Bush, signed it into law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe emerging consensus was that \u2018Don\u2019t drop the soap\u2019 jokes were no longer funny, and that rape is not a penalty we assign in sentencing,\u201d said Jael Humphrey, a lawyer with Lambda Legal<\/a>, a national group that represents Ms. Star in a federal\u00a0lawsuit<\/a> alleging that Texas officials failed to protect her from sexual victimization despite her persistent, well-documented pleas for help.<\/p>\n

But over 12 years, even as reported sexual victimization in prisons remained high, the urgency behind that consensus dissipated. It took almost a decade for the Justice Department to issue the final standards<\/a> on how to prevent, detect and respond to sexual abuse in custody. And it took a couple of years more before governors were required to report to Washington, which revealed that only New Jersey and New Hampshire were ready to certify full compliance.<\/p>\n

Sexual Victimization in Prison<\/h1>\n
\n

The share of state and federal prison inmates who reported experiencing sexual victimization in the past year, according to a survey conducted from February 2011 to May 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 By facility staff \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 By another inmate
\nAll Inmates \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02.0% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02.4%
\nMale \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01.7% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 2.4%
\nFemale \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a06.9% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a01.6%
\nWhite \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02.9% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1.6%
\nBlack \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1.3% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 2.6%
\nHispanic \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1.6% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02.2%
\nHeterosexual \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1.2% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02.1%
\nNon-heterosexual \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a012.2% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a05.4%
\nWith no mental illness \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 0.7% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 1.1%
\nWith anxiety-mood disorder \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a02.8% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 3.0%
\nWith serious psychological distress \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 6.3% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a05.6%
\nTransgender* \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 24.1% \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 16.7%<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Note: Some inmates reported experiencing victimization by both another inmate and facility staff. Mental health statuses were determined by screenings as a part of the survey.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

*Rates for transgender inmates are combined estimates from three surveys since 2007 and have a 95 percent confidence level at +\/- 6.3 percentage points and +\/- 6.5 percentage points.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Inmate Survey, 2011\u201312
\n<\/em>-[By The New York Times]-<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

With May 15 being the second annual reporting deadline, advocates for inmates and half of the members of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, a bipartisan group charged with drafting the standards, say the plodding pace of change has disheartened them despite pockets of progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am encouraged by what several states have done, discouraged by most and dismayed by states like Texas,\u201d said Judge Reggie B. Walton of United States District Court for the District of Columbia, who was appointed chairman of the now-disbanded commission by Mr. Bush.<\/p>\n

Some commissioners fault the Justice Department for failing to promote the standards vigorously. Others blame the correctional industry and unions for resisting practices long known to curb \u201cstate-sanctioned abuse,\u201d as one put it. All lament that Congress has sought to weaken the modest penalties for noncompliance, and that five governors joined Mr. Perry last year in snubbing the standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a whole kind of backlash, which is very depressing,\u201d said Jamie Fellner<\/a>, a former commissioner who is senior counsel for the United States program of Human Rights Watch. \u201cIt\u2019s 12 years since the law passed. I mean, really. We\u2019re still dealing with all these officials saying, \u2018Trust us. We\u2019ll take care of it\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TelfordPrison\"<\/a>

Telford Prison is where Ms. Star began her incarceration and where, after an odyssey through six other prisons, she returned at the end of March.<\/p><\/div>\n

Last year, 42 governors signed a form providing \u201cassurance\u201d to the Justice Department that they were advancing toward compliance. But they were allowed to make that assurance without having conducted any outside audits; the commissioners protested this in a letter<\/a> to Mr. Holder in November, expressing concern about \u201cefforts to delay or weaken\u201d adherence to the standards.<\/p>\n

In fact, the ambitious goal to audit every prison, jail, detention center, lockup and halfway house in this country over a three-year period is far behind schedule.<\/p>\n

Some 8,000 institutions are supposed to be audited for sexual safety by August 2016, but only 335 audits had been completed by March, according to a Justice Department document obtained from the office of Senator John Cornyn of Texas; the department declined to provide numbers.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department said it \u201cremains steadfast in its commitment to the implementation of the National PREA Standards\u201d \u2014 PREA is the acronym for the Prison Rape Elimination Act \u2014 and hopes for \u201cfull participation\u201d from all states this year.<\/p>\n

\"LambdaLegal\"<\/a>

Lambda Legal, a national group that represents Ms. Star in a federal lawsuit, held a rally in support of her on Friday. Later, the group delivered a petition to the governor’s office protesting her treatment.<\/p><\/div>\n

But states face only a small penalty, the loss of 5 percent of prison-related federal grants, if they opt out of the process entirely. \u201cThere are a lot of carrots in PREA, and not enough sticks,\u201d said Brenda V. Smith<\/a>, an American University law professor and another former commissioner.<\/p>\n

Texas forfeited $810,796 \u2014 a minuscule fraction of its multibillion-dollar corrections budget \u2014 after Mr. Perry declined to sign an assurance letter. According to a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, this loss \u201cwill not have any effect on T.D.C.J. operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other renegade states, as advocates called them, were Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana and Utah.<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 opting out was considered especially significant, however, because it has the largest prison population in the country and by far the most reports of sexual assault and abuse. Texas had three and a half times as many allegations as California in 2011, when California still had more inmates than Texas, according to the federal data.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Texas authorities attribute this to \u201cextensive efforts to encourage and facilitate reporting.\u201d Declining to discuss Ms. Star\u2019s case, they said their \u201cgoal is to be as compliant as possible with PREA standards without jeopardizing the safety and security of our institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty-seven of their 109 prisons have passed outside audits, they said, including the one where Ms. Star is now locked up for a teenage offense that the authorities considered kidnapping.<\/p>\n

A Predatory Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n

In this rural area just west of Texarkana, the Barry B. Telford prison complex sits behind chain-link fences topped with coils of razor ribbon. It is where Ms. Star began her incarceration the year that Congress passed the prison rape law and where, after an odyssey through six other prisons, she unexpectedly returned at the end of March.<\/p>\n

She is used to moving around. Born in Mississippi in late 1983, Ms. Star lived the peripatetic life of a military child, shuttling from state to state and twice to Germany before settling near Fort Hood, Tex., as a teenager.<\/p>\n

On a summer day when she was 18, she accompanied her boyfriend, who was 23, to a Chevrolet dealership to test-drive a car. Her boyfriend took the wheel of a maroon Impala, a salesman got in the front passenger seat and Ms. Star sat in the rear.<\/p>\n

When the salesman indicated it was time to return to the lot, the boyfriend said no, in Ms. Star\u2019s recounting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Wow. What do you mean?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s like, \u2018Be quiet.\u2019 It was one of those things where keeping it real goes wrong. Where I could have been like, \u2018Well, you need to stop,\u2019 or gotten out, and I didn\u2019t. We make bad decisions when we\u2019re young.\u201d<\/p>\n

After 40 miles, they deposited the salesman on a rural road. He eventually flagged down a police car, and an alert was issued for the stolen Chevy. The couple kept driving north, even picking up a hitchhiker at one point, until, with the authorities in pursuit, their flight ended in a ditch.<\/p>\n

Charged with aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony that carries a penalty of five to 99 years, Ms. Star accepted the same plea deal of 20 years as her boyfriend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law applies a rule of parties, which allows them to charge the passenger with the same level of culpability as the primary actor,\u201d said M. Bryon Barnhill, who was Ms. Star\u2019s court-appointed lawyer. But, he added, the boyfriend (and the hitchhiker) told the authorities \u201cthey were acting in concert with the intention of stealing the car and traveling to Canada to start a new life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Star was 19 when she arrived at Telford, with no possibility of parole for a decade. She was quickly inducted into a gang-ruled world with an ultimatum, she said: \u201cYou\u2019re going to ride with us, or you\u2019re going to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the state of Texas, in the general population, there is a culture where gay men and transgender women in prison are basically preyed on by the stronger inmates,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have to be the property of a person who\u2019s in a gang, and this person is the individual who speaks for them. So basically, they\u2019re coerced into being sexually active to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Star said that after complaining fruitlessly to prison employees, she submitted to a coerced sexual relationship. She tried to leave the inmate once, she said, but he choked her in response.<\/p>\n

The most recent national inmate survey<\/a> by the Justice Department found that sexual victimization was reported by 3.1 percent of heterosexual prisoners, 14 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual prisoners and 40 percent of transgender inmates.<\/p>\n

Because gay and transgender inmates are at such high risk, a prison\u2019s efforts to protect them are seen by experts as a barometer of its commitment to eliminating rape. That is why Ms. Star\u2019s advocates believe her case represents a pervasive problem in Texas; those defendants who filed a legal response to her complaint deny all allegations against them and contend they acted \u201cin good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her early years in prison, Ms. Star considered herself gay. She knew she was \u201cadditionally different,\u201d but it would take a few more years for her to identify as a transgender woman, to adopt a \u201cfeminine alias\u201d and to start feeling comfortable in her own skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know how penguins are?\u201d she asked. \u201cOn land, if you look at a penguin when it walks around, it\u2019s just an ungainly, clumsy creature. But in water, a penguin is one of the most graceful animals in the world.\u201d She added, \u201cI didn\u2019t feel like I was in my element until, at all types of personal risk to myself, I became Passion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becoming Passion in a maximum-security men\u2019s prison in Texas was not easy. \u201cBasically, they frown on us expressing our gender,\u201d she said. \u201cI did at one point wear my hair longer, arch my eyebrows, shave my legs and my body and everything. I wore small, form-fitting clothes and made myself feminine underwear. But I was actually disciplined for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only in 2014 that she learned from a notice in the prison newspaper that inmates were allowed to request classification as transgender, she said, and she did so.<\/p>\n

But in their response to her lawsuit, Texas officials refer to Ms. Star as Mr. Zollicoffer, use male pronouns and \u201cdeny\u201d she is transgender, \u201cas no such medical diagnosis has been made.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she were seeking medical care \u2014 and she does intend to transition, but until now she has been in survival mode \u2014 a diagnosis could be relevant,\u201d Ms. Humphrey, her lawyer, said. \u201cBut whether or not she was diagnosed as transgender has nothing to do with whether or not she deserves protection from sexual assault.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The Day-to-Day Horror\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a researcher who studied prison rape when nobody wanted to know about it,\u00a0Cindy Struckman-Johnson<\/a>, a social psychologist at the University of South Dakota, was astonished when Congress passed the rape legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it was like a miracle,\u201d said Ms. Struckman-Johnson, a former commissioner who described how she had become \u201cpersona non grata\u201d in Nebraska in the 1990’s after finding a high rate of prison rape there. \u201cEver since PREA, nobody can really be in denial.\u201d<\/p>\n

The law described prison rape as epidemic. Ideologically evenhanded, it referred at once to \u201cthe day-to-day horror of victimized inmates\u201d and to \u201cbrutalized inmates more likely to commit crimes when they are released.\u201d It spoke of the potential spread of H.I.V.<\/a> and of the need for Congress to protect the constitutional rights of prisoners in states where officials displayed deliberate indifference.<\/p>\n

The law, which established the commission, laid out a timetable under which the attorney general would publish the final anti-rape standards by 2007.<\/p>\n

But after eight public hearings, 11 site visits and two public comment periods on draft standards, the commission did not release its final report<\/a> and proposed standards until 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat took so long?\u201d Ms. Smith, the American University law professor, asked. \u201cResistance was coming from and still is coming from many correctional agencies. The resistance was: This is going to cost us too much money. But also, we were developing standards not just around preventing rape, but around respect and dignity and changing the culture that permitted or even encouraged rape in custody.\u201d<\/p>\n

It then took the Justice Department three additional years to issue final standards that were in the end \u201calmost identical \u2014 very frustrating,\u201d one commissioner said.<\/p>\n

The 52 standards for prisons and jails apply to everything from hiring and staffing levels to investigation and evidence collection to medical treatment and rape crisis counseling.<\/p>\n

State officials found some standards particularly intrusive. Mr. Perry protested that limitations on cross-gender strip searches, pat downs and bathroom supervision would force Texas to discriminate against its female officers. He said the requirement that youths in adult prisons be \u201cseparated by sight and sound\u201d from grown-up inmates infringed on Texas\u2019 right to set its age of criminal responsibility at 17.<\/p>\n

Training and technical assistance related to the coming regulations began in 2004. Since 2011, the Justice Department has doled out some $31 million in PREA-related grants, and tens of millions more to set up and run the National PREA Resource Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And indeed, judged through a long lens, considerable progress has been made. That wardens across the country now profess zero tolerance for sexual abuse represents a cultural transformation itself. There are anti-rape posters on prison bulletin boards, hotlines to report sexual abuse, educational videos for inmates, and training sessions for guards. Statistics show some prisons and jails with very low or even no reported sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not on the top deck, I\u2019m in the engine room with Scotty, and I see behavioral change on the yards and in the cell blocks,\u201d said James E. Aiken, a correctional consultant and former commissioner. \u201cThis is not a speedboat; it\u2019s a very big ship.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Kaneb, a business executive and former vice chairman of the commission, said he also thought \u201cthings are going well now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over 500 specialized auditors have been certified, and, he said, the pace of audits is accelerating: \u201cThey\u2019re not going to get 8,000 done in the next 15 months, but I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if they had 1,000 done by end of year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet others are disappointed that the states are moving slowly and that the Justice Department declines to say how much longer it will allow governors to provide \u201cassurances\u201d instead of certifying compliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis leaves open the absurd possibility that a state could kick the can down the road in perpetuity without ever incurring a financial penalty,\u201d said Lovisa Stannow, the executive director of Just Detention International<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Pat Nolan, director of the Center for Criminal Justice Reform at the American Conservative Union Foundation and a former commissioner, said that Mr. Perry\u2019s public challenge to the standards caused ripples of anxiety that linger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fear is that if you get enough states thumbing their nose at this, the whole thing could unravel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the end, the former commissioners said, oversight might have to become the provenance of the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the greatest hope, that the standards become the legal standards of care,\u201d Judge Walton said. \u201cIf states realize they\u2019re going to have multimillion-dollar lawsuits, that will be an incentive for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Quest for \u2018Safekeeping\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

At Lambda Legal\u2019s offices on Wall Street, not long after Mr. Perry\u2019s declaration to Washington, Ms. Humphrey started combing through letters from inmates complaining about sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking in our mailbag for a plaintiff who could illustrate the problems Texas was having,\u201d Ms. Humphrey said. \u201cAnd there she was.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Ms. Humphrey found was a thick envelope from Ms. Star containing the proposed draft of a legal complaint along with medical files, grievance reports and appeals \u2014 a meticulous record of her years behind bars.<\/p>\n

In 2006, Ms. Star was transferred to the James V. Allred Unit in Wichita Falls.<\/p>\n

Allred would soon be singled out by the Justice Department as one of the 10 most sexually violent prisons in the country. Five of the 10, in fact, were in Texas, and Ms. Star would end up doing time in three of them.<\/p>\n

At Allred, she was immediately targeted because she had been at Telford, she said, but she was older and unwilling \u201cto lay down and accept these things happening to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

So she embarked on what became her unrelenting quest to be placed in \u201csafe keeping,\u201d which is what Texas calls separate housing units for vulnerable inmates. She sought safe keeping not only because of recurrent sexual harassment, coercion and threats of violence, but also because of retaliation for reporting these incidents \u2014 from staff members as well as inmates, she said.<\/p>\n

At Allred, when she told a prison official she feared for her life after refusing sexual demands, the official told her she would be fine because she is black, she claims in her lawsuit. Over the years, she came to believe the system\u2019s protection program was racially discriminatory.<\/p>\n

A racial breakdown of the inmates in safe keeping, provided by Texas, indicates she may have had a point. Of the 1,569 inmates with that status now, 57 percent are white, while whites constitute 30 percent of the inmate population. Twenty-three percent in safe keeping are black, compared with 35 percent over all, and 19 percent are Hispanic, compared with 33 percent.<\/p>\n

In March 2007, Ms. Star was assigned to a cell with a gang member who instantly started demanding sexual favors. She informed a guard and asked for help, she said. Two days later, the cellmate raped her at knife point. After she reported the attack, he threw a fan at her head. It was the \u201cworst moment of my life,\u201d she said, making her feel \u201cutterly powerless,\u201d briefly suicidal and extremely fearful \u201cit would happen to me again and again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Star said she did not know what happened to her cellmate after she went to the infirmary to be treated; under the standards, victims are supposed to be kept apprised.<\/p>\n

A national panel, established after the rape law to examine institutions with the best and worst records, visited Allred and could find no indication that any sexual abuse claims had been substantiated. It noted that a significant number of claims had been filed by gay inmates \u2014 \u201cwhom staff members referred to as queens.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA question remains as to whether complaints from homosexual inmates are treated as seriously as they deserve,\u201d the panel said of Allred.<\/p>\n

Texas has a very low rate of substantiating allegations. Of 743 reports of sexual assault and abuse in the 2013 budget year, 20 cases, or 2.7 percent, were corroborated; the national rate is 10 percent. One prison rape case was sent to a grand jury that year.<\/p>\n

After the rape, Ms. Star was moved into \u201cprotective custody,\u201d a form of solitary confinement that the standards say should be used for rape victims only short-term and if no alternative, such as safe keeping, is available.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, Ms. Star was transferred to a third prison, where her new cellmate made her watch him masturbate, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI freaked,\u201d she said. \u201cImmediately, I was like, \u2018I can\u2019t deal with this.\u2019 For a long time, I bounced from cell to cell, cell to cell, cell to cell. And that\u2019s when the tag \u2018snitch\u2019 started to stick to me, because I was complaining constantly about people trying to force me into things.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that over the years, some prison officials had called her \u201cfaggot\u201d and \u201cpunk\u201d; others blamed her for bringing problems on herself. One suggested, using language that cannot be printed, that she perform oral sex, \u201cfight or quit doing gay\u201d stuff, her lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

In her fourth and fifth prisons, Ms. Star\u2019s complaints of continuing abuse and assault were dismissed with \u201cformulaic\u201d responses, her lawsuit says.<\/p>\n

In denying her requests for safe keeping, Texas made references to her \u201cassaultive history,\u201d suggesting she could endanger other vulnerable inmates. Ms. Star says that her disciplinary history \u201cis a direct reflection of T.D.C.J.\u2019s not protecting me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a disciplinary history for defending myself three or four times over 13 years,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve never hurt anybody. But I\u2019ve been hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Star was also denied parole \u2014 though her former boyfriend and co-defendant was released in April 2013, something Ms. Star learned in the interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cWow,\u201d she said. \u201cThat kind of makes me want to cry.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Nov. 19, 2013, with threats against her mounting, Ms. Star filed an emergency grievance appealing the most recent denial of her request for safe keeping. The next morning, heading to breakfast, Ms. Star found her path blocked by gang members. One repeatedly slashed her face with a razor. This was the attack that required the 36 stitches.<\/p>\n

After that, she was transferred to her sixth prison. The same problems ensued. Begging again for safe keeping, Ms. Star wrote in a grievance: \u201cJust recommending that I be transferred to another unit will not ensure my safety, just as it did not after the 3-29-07 sexual assault, nor after the 11-20-13 assault with a weapon. I am an offender with a \u2018potential for victimization,\u2019 otherwise I wouldn\u2019t be constantly victimized and threatened by other offenders.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, somebody listened. The prison\u2019s classification committee agreed she should be put in safe keeping. The state, however, overruled it.<\/p>\n

By this point, Ms. Star had been reaching out beyond prison walls \u2014 writing to the state-level corrections officials as well as to civil rights and advocacy groups, which report that they get more reports of sexual abuse from inmates in Texas than anywhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cPassion is hardly alone, but she is incredibly intelligent, incredibly well organized, and her perseverance is unparalleled,\u201d Ms. Humphrey said.<\/p>\n

After the lawyer\u2019s first visit with Ms. Star last summer, Ms. Star was moved into protective custody and spent 110 days in an 80-square-foot cell. Her lawsuit alleges that Texas officials \u201cuse confinement in isolation and the threat of isolation to deter people in custody from complaining about sexual abuse, threats and other assaults.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last November, Ms. Star was transferred to her seventh prison, William P. Clements, another prison with a very high rate of sexual victimization. She immediately found herself back among gang members she knew and encountered escalating threats of assault and rape.<\/p>\n

In March, her lawyers filed an emergency motion asking that the court order Texas to place her in safe keeping or explain how it would otherwise keep her safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid Passion is going to get murdered \u2014 like this weekend,\u201d Ms. Humphrey said then.<\/p>\n

For that weekend, her lawyers agreed to let the authorities place Ms. Star back in solitary confinement while they negotiated a resolution. At that point, Texas appeared to be arguing that Ms. Star\u2019s only alternative was to remain in isolation.<\/p>\n

On March 20, The New York Times asked Texas for permission to interview Ms. Star.<\/p>\n

On March 30, more than a decade after she says she first requested it, Texas put Passion Star in safe keeping. Her lawsuit, which seeks damages from the officials who allegedly failed to protect her, is continuing.<\/p>\n

At the time of the interview, she had been in safe keeping only a couple of days, but already found the new atmosphere a relief. \u201cEverybody\u2019s calmer,\u201d she said. \u201cThe tension level is extremely low. There are no gang influences that basically are threatening our lives. So it\u2019s a change \u2014 a change for the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a reporter left the prison that day, an officer at the security entrance said, \u201cSo, did you see him-her?\u201d<\/p>\n

Fumbling for an answer, the reporter said yes, and that Ms. Star had been \u201cvery nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a kidnapper,\u201d the officer replied.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Deborah Sontag New Boston, TX (5-12-15) —\u00a0The inmate, dressed in prison whites with a shaved head and incongruously tender eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, entered the visiting room with her wrists joined as if she were handcuffed. At 31, she … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16972"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16981,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16972\/revisions\/16981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}