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| Vermont prisoner assaulted in Kentucky |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 05/03/2004 |
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A Vermont inmate reported he was sexually assaulted by an officer at a Kentucky prison last week, the Corrections Department said Friday. The man is at the Marion Facility, said Commissioner Steve Gold. Ray Flum, a director at the Vermont Corrections Department, was due to travel to Kentucky this weekend to meet with the inmate and with police and corrections officials in that state. If the situation calls for it, the inmate will be returned to Vermont, Gold said. "That's a decision we're making over the weekend," Gold said Friday. The Vermont Corrections Department has been under intense scrutiny in the last several weeks. A report issued last month in the aftermath of several inmate deaths in state custody was sharply critical of the department's policies, and the superintendents of the prisons in Newport and St. Albans were suspended from their jobs with pay. The release of information Friday about the assault is a sign that the department is trying to be more open. "We're ... wanting to improve the transparency of the department and not have things be kept a secret that don't need to be," said Gold. "So with the support of the administration, we decided to let people know this was going on." The alleged assault happened Thursday at the prison, according to Gold, who did not release the inmate's name, age, or hometown. He said the inmate was not physically harmed, and at his request his family had been notified. The company that runs the prison, Corrections Corporation of America, investigated the complaint and then put two officers on leave, Gold said. Kentucky State Police were also investigating, he said. Vermont has more than 350 inmates housed in prisons in other states because Vermont prisons are full. Almost all of them, are in Kentucky; 233 of them are at the Marion facility, Gold said. Under Kentucky law, any sexual contact between an inmate and a prison officer is treated as sexual assault, said Gold. In fact, Vermont is the only state in the country that doesn't treat staff sexual misconduct with prisoners as a criminal offense, he said. Gold thinks that should be changed. Because of the differences between Vermont law and Kentucky law, it's not easy to compare the number of sex assaults at prisons in the two states. Gold said he knew of several cases of sexual misconduct in Vermont prisons in recent years, but hadn't heard of a sexual assault during his tenure of just over a year. Attorney Seth Lipshutz, a prisoners' rights advocate with the Vermont defender general's office, commended Gold for sending out a press release about the assault report. |
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