'A disposable population'

3-31-15 National:

How prison employees get away with sexually assaulting inmates

Barbara tried to push James Johnson away, “but he would just act like she was playing with him,” according to Sergeant Brandee Thomas' report from July 2011. Barbara said Johnson bruised her legs when he had sexual intercourse with her and gave her 10 tablets of hydrocodone, promising at least 10 more and an ice cream cake for her birthday two days later.

He had been touching her since May of that year, penetrating her vagina with his fingers and rubbing her clitoris. He kept her quiet by threatening to tell her fiance and making presents of prescription drugs and candy — even asking her friend Tina and others to make sure she stayed silent.

“[H]e would get mad if I wouldn't let him,” Barbara said in a written statement. “Then when I would he would finger me real hard in the lower bathroom” of her cell block at the Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women in Shelby County.

Johnson, a former KCIW guard, confessed to some of the crimes, and a confidential informant provided recordings of Johnson discussing others. He eventually pleaded guilty to sexually abusing three inmates, including Barbara, and felony drug trafficking. But under the terms of the plea agreement — which the prosecutor would not discuss with Renegade Press — he'll avoid any jail time and the most severe charges will be dismissed if he follows the rules during his seven-year probation.

Efforts to reach Johnson were unsuccessful, and Barbara declined to comment on the details of her abuse. Renegade Press omitted Barbara's last name to protect her anonymity.

Johnson could have faced a felony rape charge and been required to register as a sex offender, but his charges were watered down. Paul Wright, founder and executive director of the Human Rights Defense Center in Lake Worth, Fl., said light charges and “sweetheart deals” are the nationwide standard for prosecuting prison employees who are accused of sexually abusing inmates.

Wright has been advocating prison reform for 25 years, suing prisons for public records and publishing reports on the darkest truths of the United States prison industrial complex. The last anthology he co-wrote in 2008 preceded investigations by national media outlets into the corporations that profit from privately-run prisons. ..Continued.. by Chris Cotelesse