“The most disrespected, unprotected, neglected person in America is the Black woman.”- Malcom X. Women in a California prison have requested clemency from President Biden after being sexually abused by prison guards. Last week, Biden pardoned 39 people, making that the largest act of presidential clemency in a day. For centuries the U.S. prison system has negatively impacted underrepresented communities, especially Black people.
These women endured physical abuse but were also retaliated against for exposing the misconduct of those in power. The prison, Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin was where one of the largest US prison abuse scandals happened. Workers and inmates refer to it as the “rape club.”
Several staff members, including the chaplain have been convicted of sexual crimes. The US justice department announced that the prison will close permanently. Black women have faced criminal injustice for decades, and this scandal reflects systemic oppression. Black women are one of the fastest growing groups in prisons, they are jailed at almost twice the rate of White women, and they also receive harsher sentences. Once inside, they are left to face difficult challenges including no access to good healthcare or programs and they have a higher chance of being sexually abused.
According to The Guardian, a federal judge said, “the constitutional violations that occurred at the institution were shocking.” Black women are often not believed or dismissed when reporting about abuse, a pattern where their voices are left unheard. The US Senate reported in 2022 that two-thirds of federal women’s prisons had staff that sexually abused inmates over the last decade. Granting clemency would acknowledge the failures of the prison system and prioritize the humanity of those who were harmed by it.
The US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) settled a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the hundreds of women who were jailed at FCI, they entered a legal agreement to protect former inmates from abuse and punishment for speaking out. The BOP agreed to pay $115m to over 100 survivors of sexual abuse, this was a historic settlement. Some of those women have been released, but many remain jailed. Lawyers of those women still in prison say that because they are still there, it makes their trauma recovery impossible.
Roberta Bell was an inmate in the FCI Dublin for 30 years, after it was closed down, she was transferred to a Minnesota prison. She said she was denied medical care and sent to solitary confinement after speaking out against the guards. She also stated that she has been denied mental health support. She has suffered a lifetime of sexual abuse, she was abused as a child, by the co-defendant in her case, and by prison guards. She hopes that President Biden will look at her clemency application and not equate her charges of violence to her being a violent person.
Each woman who was impacted by the misconduct of prison staff deserve not only for their voices and stories to be heard, but also for their pain to be acknowledged and justice to be served.
