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| Immigrants Allege Abuse in U.S. Jail |
| By Reuters |
| Published: 05/13/2002 |
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Foreign citizens seeking asylum in the United States or fighting deportation say they have been physically and sexually abused in the Virginia jail where they are being held. Detainees in the Piedmont Regional Jail which serves several rural counties in southern Virginia told visitors including a reporter they had been beaten by officers, slammed against walls and floors, shot with pepper spray pellets at close range, deprived of medical care and prescribed medication, denied regular outdoor recreation and often placed in isolation for no good reason. Women alleged that last month an entire female cellblock had been ordered to stay in bed for over a week and allowed to get up only to use the toilet and shower. They also said they had been forced to strip naked directly under a video camera which male officers have access to outside the cellblock. INS spokeswoman Karen Kraushaar said the charges were potentially very serious. Kraushaar said the agency's office of internal investigation had closed one investigation last year which involved allegations of sexual abuse of a female detainee by a Piedmont officer. The officer resigned and was being prosecuted. Piedmont has about 370 inmates, of whom around 100 are INS detainees and the rest are convicted U.S. criminals serving sentences, some for violent crimes. The two populations are mixed but the INS is building a special wing that will house most of its detainees in the mid-Atlantic region. Immigration detainees, many of whom have committed no crime and are awaiting a decision on their claim for asylum, are held in several Virginia jails. Lawyers are harshly critical about conditions in Piedmont. |
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