Alaskan state prison guards sexually harassed inmates: report

An Alaska watchdog found that prisoners in one of the state’s correctional facilities were sexually harassed by female staff, according to a new report.

The investigation, which was conducted by Alaska’s ombudsman, was launched after an inmate filed a complaint that claimed female staff members placed him and other inmates on a dog leash and paraded them through part of the jail naked. He also said he was placed in cells that had no running water, blood on the walls, and feces inside.

{mosads}The incident took place in Seward’s Spring Creek Correctional Center. The watchdog investigative report was first detailed in The New York Times, which spoke to ombudsman, Kate Burkhart.

The inmate said the prison staff assigned to probe the complaint were the same individuals who oversaw the penalties. One of those individuals, a lieutenant with the Department of Corrections, in its own 2013 memo regarding the complaint said that the inmates had misused “state clothing,” but did not describe the specifics to the ombudsman when asked for details on how the inmates misused the clothing on the date in question.

Burkhart’s report provided multiple recommendations, including the adoption of a body camera police for the Department of Corrections to record interactions between inmates and staff. 

“The ombudsman doesn’t have enforcement power, but the governor and the legislature certainly do,” Burkhart told The Times. “If there’s evidence that a state agency isn’t following the law, then putting the governor and the legislature on notice that it’s happening, so that they can react and hopefully resolve the problem, is important.”