Prison work assignments used to lure and rape female inmates. Guards sometimes walk free
As part of a sweeping two-year investigation into prison labor, The Associated Press found that correctional staff nationwide have been accused of using inmate work assignments to sexually abuse incarcerated women, luring them to isolated spots, out of...
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — It was after midnight when she crept down the narrow, dimly lit stairs carrying a bag of dirty laundry. She crossed under a patchwork of pipes and ducts to the far back corner of the basement, as she had done many times before. That, she said, is where correctional officer James Widen was waiting for her.
He had just called her name over the intercom, telling her to report to the work release center’s laundry room. So April Youst rose from her bunk, careful not to wake the other incarcerated women sleeping in the dorm.
When she got downstairs, she said Widen offered to save her some money by opening “the cage,” a little room with free washers and dryers reserved for new prisoners who hadn’t yet started their jobs.
She gratefully stepped inside. And then, she said, everything changed.
“He’s rubbing himself,” she said, while reminding her of all the little favors he’d done for her. “He was like … ‘It’s time to pay.’”
Her account of that night to The Associated Press mirrors, almost word for word, the complaint she filed with police eight years ago. Widen was charged two years later and pleaded not guilty, but the case continues to crawl through the criminal court system. He vehemently denied the allegations to the AP, contending he was set up.
Youst is part of the fastest-growing population behind bars — women, most of whom are locked up for nonviolent crimes that often are drug-related. Though female prisoners long have been victims of sexual
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