A decade after finding that Alabama failed to protect women incarcerated at Julia Tutwiler Prison from sexual abuse and harassment, the U.S. Department of Justice is preparing to scale back its oversight of the prison.
The DOJ, in a motion filed jointly with the state Thursday, asked a federal court to terminate 38 of 44 provisions in a consent decree entered in May 2015.
The consent decree required policies and procedures to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse and harassment and give the women at Tutwiler a safe and secure environment as required by the U.S. Constitution.
Reports from court-appointed monitors show the Alabama Department of Corrections has complied with almost all of the requirements at Tutwiler over the last six years.
“Due to the State’s sustained substantial compliance with the agreed-upon provisions of the Consent Decree, continued cooperation, and important reforms at Tutwiler over the course of this action, the Parties respectfully move this Court to terminate” most of the provisions of the decree, lawyers wrote in the motion.
According to the last monitor’s report on Sept. 12, Tutwiler was in compliance with all 44 provisions in the consent decree.
“I am thankful for the men and women who are dedicated to our mission at Tutwiler,” Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Hamm said in a press release. “This joint motion to terminate most of the requirements on this consent decree is a credit to our entire team and their dedication to our department and our state. We look forward to ending all court oversight of Tutwiler in the near future.”
The consent decree’s requirements concerning staffing levels and a staffing plan to safely operate the prison are among those that would remain in effect.
In January 2014, the DOJ notified then-Gov. Robert Bentley in a 36-page letter that an investigation determined that conditions at Tutwiler violated the Constitution, citing what it called “a history of unabated staff-on-prisoner sexual abuses and harassment.”
The letter said: “They live in a sexualized environment with repeated and open sexual behavior, including: abusive sexual contact between staff and prisoners; sexualized activity, including a strip show condoned by staff; profane and unprofessional sexualized language and harassment; and deliberate cross-gender viewing of prisoners showering, urinating and defecating.”
The consent decree required “zero tolerance” policies for sexual abuse and harassment, including compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), passed by Congress in 2003.
Requirements in the consent decree include training prison staff to prevent, detect and respond to reports of sexual abuse; protecting inmates who report sexual abuse from retaliation; screening incoming inmates for risk of being victims of sexual abuse or abusing other inmates; making sure inmates understand their rights to be free from sexual abuse and harassment and know how to report instances of abuse and harassment.
The consent decree requires policies that respect the rights of lesbian, gay, and transgender inmates and that provide those inmates with a safe and respectful environment.
The consent decree required Tutwiler to maintain a “state of the art” camera system, with cameras strategically placed to maximize supervision while protecting the women’s privacy.
The DOJ investigation at Tutwiler came after the Equal Justice Initiative reported in 2012 on wide-scale sexual abuse and harassment by male security staff.
