Nearly half of federal prison staff report sexual abuse by inmates

FIRST ON FOX: Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have introduced new legislation to address the shocking percentage of the population sexual crimes committed by prisoners against federal corrections officials.

The Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act is in response to a report from the Department of Justice Inspector General, which found that 40% of Federal Bureau of Prisons employees said they had been sexually assaulted by an inmate.

“It is unacceptable that nearly half of the Bureau of Prisons’ workforce experiences sexual harassment or assault by inmates. The Bureau of Prisons must do more to ensure the safety of correctional officers and hold perpetrators accountable,” said Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla. ., who co-sponsored a new bill to combat this. “The Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act will provide oversight of the federal prison system and combat these abuses.”

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A guard checks vehicles entering the Butner Federal Correctional Complex on November 20, 2015 in Butner, North Carolina. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

The bill was introduced in the House by Reps. Lee and Hank Johnson, D-Ga. A Senate version was sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., and previously introduced.

Johnson said incidents had risen to an “unacceptable level”, especially against female officers.

The bill provides the Ministry of Justice Inspector General will have one year to conduct a statistical review of incidents of sexual assault and harassment that prison guards have suffered by inmates in federal prisons, conduct an analysis of the sentences handed out, and then another 180 days to conduct an report to the Judiciary Committees of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

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Secret Service and prison guards stand on the roof of the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, as President Barack Obama visits a cell block, July 16, 2015. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

After that, the attorney general will have to establish new rules to prevent and reduce such cases and standardize punishments for inmates who attack guards.

“Last year, nearly half of Bureau of Prisons staff surveyed said they had been sexually harassed or assaulted by an inmate,” Blackburn said. “This statistic is appalling and unacceptable. No federal employee or law enforcement officer should have to fear for their safety when they show up for work, and the Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act would be an important step forward in ending sexual abuse of prison staffers who are just trying to do their jobs.”

The proposal receives support from the Fraternal Order of Police.

“The staggering number of documented cases of sexual violence underlines the dangerous environment in which our officers and other personnel operate,” said FOP President Patrick Yoes.

The Federal Correctional Complex, known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies, in Florence, Colorado. (iStock)

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The Bureau of Prisons has come under fire in recent years for a number of issues. A plague of prisoner suicides, including that of sex trafficking financier Jeffrey Epstein, led to a separate IG investigation and the closure of the Manhattan jail where he was being held.

Federal agents swarmed to another nearby facility in Brooklyn last month, where Sean “Diddy” Combs is being held pending trial on his own sex trafficking charges.

The Bureau of Prisons’ previous director, Michael D. Carvajal, resigned in 2022 amid reports of widespread crime and corruption within the agency.

He left months after The Associated Press reported that the Bureau of Prisons is “a hotbed of abuse, bribery and corruption, and turns a blind eye to employees accused of misconduct.”

Since 2019, more than a hundred BOP employees have been arrested, convicted or sentenced for crimes, with one director accused of sexually assaulting an inmate.

Chris Pandolfo of Fox News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.