Stories of Survival: Recognizing Rape Behind Bars

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By www.spr.org

Published: 09/17/2003

In June, survivors of prisoner rape from around the country gathered in Washington DC to tell personal stories of abuse and urge lawmakers to address the problem. The event was sponsored by Stop Prisoner Rape (SPR), a national human rights organization dedicated to ending sexual violence against men, women, and youth in detention. Co-sponsors of the Prison Rape Reduction Act of 2003, which was signed into law by President Bush, also spoke including Rep. Bobbie Scott (D-VA), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), and Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (R-MD).

These and additional stories are also available on the Stop prisoner Rape website www.spr.org.

The following is a selection of the survivor's stories that were told at the event.

Linda Bruntmyer

My name is Linda Bruntmyer, and I am here today to tell you about my son, Rodney Hulin.

When Rodney was sixteen, he and his brother set a dumpster on fire in an alley in our neighborhood. The authorities decided to make an example of Rodney. Even though only about $500 in damage was caused by the fire, they sentenced him to eight years in an adult prison.

We were frightened for him from the start. At sixteen, Rodney was a small guy, only 5'2 and about 125 pounds. And as a first-time offender, we knew he might be targeted by older, tougher, adult inmates.

Then, our worst nightmares came true. Rodney wrote us a letter telling us he'd been raped. A medical examination had confirmed the rape. A doctor found tears in his rectum and ordered an HIV test, because, he told us, one-third of the prisoners there were HIV positive.

But that was only the beginning. Rodney knew if he went back into the general population, he would be in danger. He wrote to the authorities requesting to be moved to a safer place. He went through all the proper channels, but he was denied.

After the first rape, he was returned to the general population. There, he was repeatedly beaten and forced to perform oral sex and raped. He wrote for help again. In his grievance letter he wrote, 'I have been sexually and physically assaulted several times, by several inmates. I am afraid to go to sleep, to shower, and just about everything else. I am afraid that when I am doing these things, I might die at any minute. Please sir, help me.'

Still, officials told him that he did not meet 'emergency grievance criteria.' We all tried to get him to a safe place. I called the warden, trying to figure out what was going on. He said Rodney needed to grow up. He said, 'This happens everyday, learn to deal with it. It's no big deal.'

We were desperate. Rodney started to violate rules so that he would be put in segregation. After he was finally put in segregation, we had about a ten minute phone conversation. He was crying. He said, 'Mom, I'm emotionally and mentally destroyed.'

That was the last time I heard his voice. On the night of January 26, 1996, my son hanged himself in his cell. He was seventeen and afraid, and ashamed, and hopeless. He laid in a coma for the next four months before he died.

Sadly, I know that Rodney is not alone. The human rights group, Stop Prisoner Rape gets calls and letters everyday from men and women who have survived prisoner rape and from their family members asking them for help, asking them to help them move to a safer place, asking them to help protect their loved ones who are being raped, asking them to explain why there is no one in authority that will step in and say, 'No! This is not justice. This is not right.'.

We know that what happened to Rodney could have been prevented. There are ways to protect the vulnerable inmates and ways to respond to the needs of prisoners who have been sexually assaulted. Even so, vulnerable prisoners are being sexually brutalized across the country, everyday. Rodney tried to ask for help, and I tried too. But nothing was done.

Rape in prison should no longer be tolerated. It destroys human dignity, it spreads disease, it makes people more angry and violent. It kills.

This is NOT what we mean when we say justice. Rape should not be considered a part of punishment. Rape is always a crime.

Tom Cahill

In 1968, I was arrested for civil disobedience in Texas. I was placed in a cell with 30 other prisoners, for the next twenty four hours I was tortured and gang raped. Even though it was 1968, and I have worked very hard with the support of family and friends to overcome it, the pain is still with me today, thirty-five years later.

To add to the horror I was experiencing, I later learned from a cellmate that my rape was deliberately orchestrated by the officer who put me there as something called a 'turning out party.' Among other things, the guards, who were opposed to my 1960s reform politics, promised the inmates who raped me an extra ration of Jell-o if they would 'take care of' me.

Two years later, I got married and started a portrait business that was quite successful for awhile. But as often happens in post traumatic stress disorder, there was a delay of about six years before the full impact of my rape hit me. The trauma of the experience came back daily, and I was no longer able to live my normal life. The only trauma I have had in my life was this gang rape in jail. I lost my business and my wife. I was homeless for ten years, until I received a disability pension from the Veterans Administration.

Rape is crazy-making. It may be the ultimate humiliation, with very serious and long-lasting psychic damage to the victim. It also harms close loved ones who are secondary victims that have to deal with the pain, like some of the other speakers here today.

I have struggled for a long time to try to understand this kind of cruel act, and while I still don't understand it, I am sure part of it was politically motivated. I was a peace activist. To the guards at that time, I was the enemy.

Whatever the reason, however, my story is not unique. I consider my rape and resulting trauma mild compared to most of the prisoner rape cases I've heard or read about. We often hear from survivors of prisoner rape that guards sometimes use rape as a management tool, putting people in dangerous situations to punish them and to reward the would-be rapist.

In 1982, I began to do research into prisoner rape and decided to find a way to stop this abuse. I teamed up with another activist and prisoner rape survivor, Stephen Donaldson.

Stephen Donaldson can't be here to tell his story. So I will. As a Navy veteran turned Quaker peace activist, Stephen Donaldson was arrested in 1973 on the White House grounds at a Pray-in to stop the bombing of Cambodia. In prison, he was sexually tortured for two days.

Not long before he died in 1996 of AIDS contracted by rape in prison, Donny agreed with me that, especially as veterans, we both felt thoroughly betrayed by our country. We were tortured, the authorities knew it was happening, and no one did anything to stop it. In fact, in my case, it was encouraged.

Through Stop Prisoner Rape, I am working hard to shed light on this problem, a problem many people don't want to hear about. I have worked on this issue for twenty years, and I never thought that prisoner rape would be taken seriously in my lifetime. I hope that we can at least start to put an end to this barbarism.

Vivian Edwards

Imagine knowing that someone you love is being repeatedly raped, abused, and degraded and that there is little to nothing that you can do about it.

For the last two and a half years, my family and I have been paralyzed by this knowledge and our inability to stop the rape and abuse.

My name is Vivian Edwards and I am here to tell you about my nephew, Roderick Johnson. In my family, he goes by Keith.

Keith is a Navy veteran and was imprisoned in Marshall, Texas in January of 2000 for a non-violent crime. He wrote a $300 check even though he knew that he did not have the funds to cover this amount, violating the terms of his parole for a burglary that he committed over 10 years ago.

From the beginning, my nephew knew that being a gay man put him at risk, so he informed prison officials that he was gay in hopes that he would be offered protection. My nephew was offered no protection. While at Allred, he was placed in the general population.

He might as well have been put in a lions' den. He was immediately given the name 'CoCo' by the other inmates which made it clear to all inmates that he was available for sexual exploitation. The prison officials also began to call Keith by this nickname and would refer to him as 'she' or 'her.'

Keith was raped by a member of the gang called 'Gangster Disciples' in early October 2000. My nephew informed prison officials about what had happened and that he feared for his life. He asked for medical attention. He was denied help and denied medical assistance. They told him that medical care was only available for an emergency. My nephew was raped! How can someone say that is not an emergency?

Soon after the rape, things just got worse for my nephew. Hernandez began quote 'sharing' Keith with other inmates, and Keith literally became a sex slave.

Keith wrote to several of his family members from prison. He was afraid to tell most of us that he was being severely sexually abused. But the letters started to change, and he eventually told us what was happening. I can still remember reading the words: 'they make me do things I don't want to do' and just crying. He told us that he feared for his life.

We called the prison to find out what was going on. Staff at the prison said they would check into Keith's complaints. They said Keith's complaints didn't warrant an investigation but they would move him to another prison wing. He wasn't safe there either. Other family members and I continued to write and call on Keith's behalf, but nothing ever changed- he was never safe.

During a period of 18 months, Keith appeared before the classification committee of Allred seven times. Each time he asked to be put in protective custody, but his requests were denied each time.

Each time they denied Keith the protection that he so badly needed, he was sent back to the general population and raped and forced to perform sexual acts against his will. He was traded between various gangs in prison - the Bloods, the Crips, the Tangos, the Mandingo Warriors - and sold out for $5 and $10 for sex acts.

By December of 2001, Keith feared for his life so much that he purposely incurred a serious disciplinary violation. He was given the maximum punishment and received 15 days in solitary confinement. Ironically, this was the first and only protection that he ever received while at Allred. Sadly, though, this punishment also included extending his sentence for more than two more years past the date that he would have been eligible for release.

After Keith's seventh life endangerment claim, he began writing the ACLU and other outside organizations for assistance. The ACLU National Prison Project came to his rescue. They filed a federal lawsuit on behalf my nephew against several Texas prison officials that ignored his pleas for protection against gangs who forced him into sexual slavery.

Keith had asked us to pray for him, and we did. Our prayers were finally answered. He was moved to a safety protection unit soon after the ACLU National Prison Project filed the lawsuit.

Keith has tested negative for HIV, but still lives in constant fear that he might have contracted other diseases from countless forced sex incidence. Prison rape is a serious crime that not only affects the victim, but also the family. As I said before, my entire family has been horrified and devastated for the past two and a half years because of what has happened to Keith. Today we are praying for Keith, but we are also fighting for him and for every other prisoner that has been a victim of rape while in prison as well.

Hope F.

I have tried to write this story many times, only to find myself in tears at the thought of recounting the events. But now, years later, I am finding the courage, little by little, to speak out. I pray that this courage will be with me today.
My name is Hope. In July 1997 I was incarcerated following an arrest for a drug related offense. I had been sent to a rehab facility in Virginia, but because of my extreme withdrawal symptoms from heroin and cocaine, they pulled me out of this facility and sent me, instead, to jail.
I was sent to the DC jail on no particular charges, but simply because I needed medical attention and was pending indictment. From the DC jail, I was transferred to a medical unit at CCA (a privately contracted jail adjacent to DC jail). This was where anyone with medical concerns, pregnancy, injury, extreme illness, or other debilitating circumstances was sent.
The unit consisted of male and female inmates. When I got there, I was surprised to realize that male guards were on staff guarding the mixed population. Male guards were allowed to watch us changing, showering, and using the toilet.
Also to my surprise, male and female inmates were allowed recreational time together on this unit. I met a woman pregnant with her third child all of which WERE CONCEIVED IN JAIL.
I was denied a shower for more than 2 weeks. When I finally was permitted to have one, the guard came to get me at 3 am. He took me to a private, hospital-type room. He proposed I smoke a cigarette with him (smoking was not permitted in this facility). I smoked with him, and this he thought allowed him access to rape me. He attacked me while I was showering.
I was terrified, and I didn't know what to do. I was in terrible physical condition because of my withdrawal, and I didn't know who would believe me.
Then, it happened again on a subsequent night. I was doped up on the psych meds that had been prescribed to aid with my withdrawal symptoms. Again, he took me to the shower, and raped me. I was defenseless, and mentally and physically weakened by the drugs. The nurses were asleep in their station 20 feet up the hall, and the relieving guard was on break.
Afterwards, he gave me back my paper jumpsuit. I was putting it on when another guard entered the room and became extremely suspicious. You'd think this eye-witness would have been enough to prosecute him. But it wasn't. An 'inconclusive' rape test conducted after my shower meant there was no follow-up.
Since then, my hands have been tied. I have not been able to prosecute the rapist. I have had no avenue for seeking justice.
Since my release, I have tried to move on with my life. I am married, I have three children, and I am in school studying to be a Social Worker with a specialty in addictions rehabilitation. But the pain of this experience comes back to me often. I am still struggling to put it behind me.
To my rapist, I say God will be your judge. I practice daily forgiveness when the mind numbing thoughts won't go away. I pray and I pray to help me get through this. I keep praying because it's MY life.

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