A female prisoner in a US correctional facility in New Jersey has claimed in a lawsuit that she was sexually assaulted by a transgender inmate who had male genitalia, and has also accused the state’s department of corrections of failing to take “corrective actions” to protect female prisoners.
The legal claim filed late last month alleges that the unidentified complainant was not adequately protected by prison staff at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. It adds that the prison population included “sexually aggressive” inmates and that complaints had been made about the “harassing behavior of the transgenders,” many of whom it says are in possession of “fully functioning male anatomy.”
The alleged assaults at the center of the lawsuit are said to have occurred in September and October of last year.
Neither the prison nor the state’s department of corrections have commented on the ongoing litigation. The alleged perpetrator, who identifies as a transgender female, has been moved to a male facility, local media outlet My Central Jersey reported.
Additionally, the lawsuit claims that the New Jersey Department of Corrections disregarded safety standards in its inmate population even after “two female inmates became pregnant from sexual interactions with transgenders.” The claim also alleges that female inmates were frequently housed in areas with transgender prisoners that were not properly monitored with the use of security cameras.
In a separate legal claim, another inmate at Mahan Correctional Facility has alleged that she was forced to engage in non-consensual sex with a male prison guard in August 2021. It says that the guard led the female prisoner to a secluded area and demanded that she perform a sexual act on him.
It adds that she was told that her time in prison would be “really good” if she complied and that she did not “want to leave with missing teeth.” The guard was soon transferred to another facility.
In April 2020, the United States Department of Justice released the findings of a report into the prison that detailed the “open secret” of repeated instances of sexual misconduct there, which it said had been ongoing for decades. The report found that some inmates had been forced to trade sex for toilet paper. In the year after the release of the findings, some 31 correctional staff members were suspended.
In February, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced that the facility was to be closed and that inmates were to serve the remainder of their sentences elsewhere, though it remains unclear when this process will be completed.