Formerly Incarcerated Advocate on Why Sexual Violence Persists in Men's State Prisons

0:00From KQED. On the California Report Magazine, we bring you stories about Californians helping out their neighbors, like a little store in Oakland where shoppers can walk out with one item for free. I mean, opening up a shop and giving away stuff for free, my first customer thought I was insane. Still here, so it seems to be working. I'm Sasha Koka. You can hear more Community Connections stories on the California Report Magazine podcast. Good morning. This is the California Report. I'm Adi Boleigneus since San Francisco. California lawmakers have sent a slew of bills to Governor Gavin Newsom's desk aiming to increase state oversight of federal immigration detention. From KQED's Immigration Desk, Tiki Hendrix reports. The bills come as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested a record number of Californians and six people have died at ICE facilities in the state since the start

1:01of last year. One measure would extend the state attorney general's power to inspect ICE facilities, another would create an enforceable bill of rights ensuring humane conditions in civil detention. ICE says conditions are already humane and says in a statement, quote, all detainees are provided with proper meals, quality water, blankets, medical treatment. It's wrong and it's just not true. That's attorney general Rob Bonta. He says his inspections have actually found dangerous conditions. That's why these bills are important because we know what the reality is. We know the immigrants who are in detention centers are experiencing because we went in there and talked to them and we know that they need to go to ICE to keep them safe. The state has a right to apply its laws to federal facilities, the same way they apply to state and local ones as long as they don't place an undue burden on the federal government. That's according to UC Berkeley Law School Dean Irwin Chemerinsky. But he expects if these bills become law, they'll be challenged in court by the Trump

2:05administration and the private prison companies. He sees it as a calculated risk. What California is trying to do is to step in so as to protect the rights of people in the state where the federal government is infringing them. The governor has until the end of September to sign or veto the bills on his death. For the California report, I'm Taiki Hendrix. There are major faults in how the state tracks, investigates, and prevents sexual abuse and assault in California men's prisons. That's according to a recent report from UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley's Criminal Law and Justice Center. California prison officials and advocates met this week in Sacramento to discuss the ongoing crisis. I spoke with formerly incarcerated community advocate, Darnell Washington, about some of the reasons sexual violence persists and what needs to change to better protect incarcerated people. I started by asking him why sexual violence is still an issue in men's prisons despite the Prison Rape Elimination Act or Priya that was implemented over two decades ago.

3:08That's the federal law that sets national standards for correctional facilities to eliminate sexual assault in prisons. Here's what he said. I think one is lack of reporting, lack of trust in staff. When they're reporting and worrying about whether it be retaliation or what I say become financial and when I get the support I need or what I be punished for bringing this to staff. You were a Priya instructor at San Quentin. Can you tell me a little bit about what that entailed? Well, we bring guys into the room and basically we'll tell them about Priya, the Prison Rape Elimination Act, how to report it, who to report it to. Let them know it's supposed to be confidentiality, whoever the officer is between you, him, and then they bring it to the watch commander and everything is confidential and if the officer was to bring it out, he can be held accountable as well. So that helped a lot of people and knowing that I'm a peer for them and they felt comfortable

4:10talking to me about any questions they had. Something that's come up a lot in this conference is retaliation, not just from staff but from other prisoners. What is retaliation like and can you just describe for people who don't have an understanding like how that can affect people's ability to report or to want to report? I think one of them could be like people ostracizing them like you as a snitch or you're like this and just not looking at them as someone who's a victim. Yeah, it's interesting. The report also mentions that there's the social element of reporting rape and there are stigmas around that in men's prisons. What do people risk socially when they report rape? Well, some people think like, I'm weak now. How are people going to look at me? My man has been taken or rather I just wanted it because why did I fight? All of these different things are why you didn't protect yourself from this. Not understanding the person was in fear.

5:12This is one of the problems we have with a young man. When we talked to our daughters, we like, if someone ever touched you, you better come tell me. How many of us have that same conversations with our sons? We talked about this earlier but there's a backlog of preer reports. There's too many preer reports for the system to handle and some of the answers to that question are, you know, people are creating false reports. Why would someone create a false preer report? Well, a lot of times in prison you have relationships that's going bad. You know, there is a lot of drugs in prison and people have drug deaths. People just don't want to be in a certain prison anymore. They just want to get moved and that's one way to get moved out. And there is no consequence in for making these false reports as well. So maybe if it was mentioned that there could be consequences for making false reports, maybe people wouldn't make them as well because you have to have some type of deterrence

6:14because if not, you waste in valuable resources for those who have really been victims of it. If California wants to go from responding to sexual assault to preventing it, what needs to happen? I think number one most importantly, single man. So get into population down because the officers cannot watch everything that's going on. And if they're overworked, how are they going to pay attention to exactly what's going on? That was formerly incarcerated advocate, Darnell Washington. And that is the California Report for Thursday, September 3rd. We're a production of KQED News. I'm Madhibo Lanyos. Thank you for listening and have a great day. Support for the California Report comes from Stanford Medicine, comprising its School of Medicine and Adult and Children's Health Systems, working together to advance knowledge and improve lives, Stanford Medicine.org.

7:18The Wesley Foundation, recognizing young social entrepreneurs through the Wesley Prize for Young Innovators of California, information about how to apply is available at Wesley.org. And Eric and Wendy Schmidt, whose philanthropy works to create a healthy, resilient, secure world for all, on the web at the Schmidt.org.