DENVER—The Denver Women’s Correctional Facility has the nation’s worst record of sexual assaults, according to a federal study released Thursday.
The study released by the U.S. Department of Justice reported that more than one in 10 women at the prison claimed staff members sexually assaulted them. The rate was the highest in the nation.
By comparison, of the 38,251 male and female inmates at 225 prisons and 358 jails involved in the nation-wide survey, 2.4 percent of inmates claimed to have been sexually abused by staff members, The Denver Post reported ().
Colorado Department of Corrections officials said Thursday that security improvements have been made, including installing more surveillance cameras and making secluded areas such as janitors’ closets more visible.
“Employees have been and will continue to be held accountable,” interim Corrections Director Roger Werholtz said in a statement.
The department’s body searches were more extensive during part of the period under study because more contraband was getting into the prison. The new practice prompted inmate complaints, and the more extensive searches were dropped.
The Denver Women’s Correctional Facility was identified among 12 prisons across the country considered “high-rate” facilities based on reports of staff sexual misconduct. The 12 include eight male prisons and four female prisons.
The report also looked at inmate-on-inmate abuse. It said that 4 percent of state and federal inmates reported being sexually victimized in the past year. That is down from 4.5 percent in a survey conducted in 2007, according to the report.
At Denver Women’s Correctional Facility, a total of 12.2 percent of women surveyed said they were sexually abused by staff and inmates.
Inmates at two other Colorado prisons were part of the study, the newspaper reported.
Only 1.2 percent of male inmates at the state-run Buena Vista Correctional Center claimed to have been sexually victimized. Of inmates at Skyline Correctional Center, also a state prison, 2.4 percent of inmates said they were sexually assaulted.
At Denver County Jail, of 205 inmates asked to participate, 69 percent responded. Of those inmates, 3.7 claimed to have been sexually victimized. It was the highest rate of abuse reported at the seven jails surveyed.
The study was conducted between February 2011 and May 2012. According to the newspaper, the accuracy of the inmate reporting was above 95 percent.
———
Information from: The Denver Post,
