Kentucky Sentences 400 Women to Sexual Assault

No, not for sexual assault; to sexual assault.

A day after Hawaii announced it will pull inmates from a troubled private prison in Wheelwright, Kentucky officials said the state will keep more than 400 female inmates in the facility despite allegations that several prisoners have been sexually abused.

Kentucky public safety officials said Wednesday that the state will keep inmates at Otter Creek Correctional Center because Corrections Corporation of America — which runs Otter Creek — has agreed to make improvements to ensure inmate safety.

The Department of Corrections is currently negotiating its contract with the Nashville-based private prison company. Otter Creek houses both Hawaii and Kentucky inmates.

Hawaii officials announced Tuesday at a legislative hearing that the state has already removed 40 inmates from Otter Creek and the remaining 128 Hawaii prisoners will be moved to other facilities by the end of the month.

Both Hawaii and Kentucky have launched investigations into sexual abuse of female prisoners by guards at the facility. Several guards have been charged with sexual assault over the past several years and the Kentucky State Police plan to present another alleged sexual assault case to a grand jury soon.

SNIP

Last year, Kentucky paid CCA $8.1 million to house an average of 431 inmates.

SNIP

An investigation into more than a dozen possible sexual assaults at the facility is still ongoing, Brislin said. If the department is not satisfied with changes at Otter Creek, the state has a 120-day “out clause” in its contract.

In July, when the state of Hawaii started investigating claims by Hawaiian women at Otter Creek that they were being raped, Governor Linda Lingle said the state had no other place to keep those female prisoners.

Lingle noted the costs involved in housing the prisoners in Hawaii. "It's a concern because there's no where to put them," she said. "If there's a desire to bring prisoners home -- whether they're male or female prisoners -- we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars that we don't have right now. ... We don't have a facility right now where we can house them."

And yet, barely a month later, Hawaii is removing all 169 of its women prisoners from Otter Creek.

To force a republican governor to spend millions to transfer a bunch of criminals who complained about bad treatment, that investigation must have found some pretty bad shit going on.

But hey, Kaintuck wimmins is tuff. Do the crime, do the time. Be thankful it's just rape; in Saudia Arabia it'd be 100 lashes, too.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at They Gave Us A Republic ....