[Senate Hearing 117-538]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]






                                                        S. Hrg. 117-538

           SEXUAL ABUSE OF FEMALE INMATES IN FEDERAL PRISONS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS

                                 of the

                              COMMITTEE ON
               HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS


                             SECOND SESSION

                               ----------                              

                           DECEMBER 13, 2022

                               ----------                              

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                       Printed for the use of the
        Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs






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                                                        S. Hrg. 117-538

           SEXUAL ABUSE OF FEMALE INMATES IN FEDERAL PRISONS

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               before the

                PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS

                                 of the

                              COMMITTEE ON
               HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS


                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                           DECEMBER 13, 2022

                               __________

        Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov

                       Printed for the use of the
        Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

        COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS



[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]




                              
                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                 
50-239 1ADPDF            WASHINGTON : 2023 


























                   GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona              RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada                  JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California             MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia                  RICK SCOTT, Florida
                                     JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

                   David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
                    Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
                Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
                     Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
                    Ashley A. Howard, Hearing Clerk


                PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS

                     JON OSSOFF, Georgia, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware           RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire         RAND PAUL, Kentucky
ALEX PADILLA, California             JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
                                     RICK SCOTT, Florida

                    Sara Schaumburg, Staff Director
                     Dan Eisenberg, Senior Counsel
                 Brian Downey, Minority Staff Director
               Patrick Hartobey, Minority Senior Counsel
                      Kate Kielceski, Chief Clerk  
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                      
                            C O N T E N T S

                                 ------                                
Opening statements:
                                                                   Page
    Senator Ossoff...............................................     1
    Senator Johnson..............................................     3
    Senator Padilla..............................................    17
Prepared statements:
    Senator Ossoff...............................................    45
    Senator Johnson..............................................    48

                               WITNESSES
                       Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Carolyn Richardson, Formerly Incarcerated in the Federal Bureau 
  of Prisons.....................................................     5
Briane Moore, Formerly Incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of 
  Prisons........................................................     7
Linda De La Rosa, Formerly Incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of 
  Prisons........................................................     9
Brenda V. Smith, Professor of Law, American University Washington 
  College of Law.................................................    10
Hon. Michael E. Horowitz, Inspector General, U.S. Department of 
  Justice........................................................    23
Colette S. Peters, Director, Federal Bureau of Prisons...........    25

                     Alphabetical List of Witnesses

De La Rosa, Linda:
    Testimony....................................................     9
    Prepared statement...........................................   109
Horowitz, Hon. Michael E.:
    Testimony....................................................    23
    Prepared statement...........................................   156
Moore, Briane:
    Testimony....................................................     7
    Prepared statement...........................................   103
Peters, Colette S.:
    Testimony....................................................    25
    Prepared statement...........................................   167
Richardson, Carolyn:
    Testimony....................................................     5
    Prepared statement...........................................    49
Smith, Brenda V.:
    Testimony....................................................    10
    Prepared statement...........................................   112

                                APPENDIX

Staff Report.....................................................   174
Kevin Ring, President, FAMM Statement for the Record.............   242

 
           SEXUAL ABUSE OF FEMALE INMATES IN FEDERAL PRISONS

                              ----------                              


                       TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2022

                                   U.S. Senate,    
              Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,    
                    of the Committee on Homeland Security  
                                  and Governmental Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m., in 
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jon Ossoff, 
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
    Present: Senators Ossoff, Hassan, Padilla, Johnson, 
Lankford, and Scott.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR OSSOFF\1\

    Senator Ossoff. The Permanent Subcommittee on 
Investigations (PSI) will come to order.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Senator Ossoff appears in the 
Appendix on page 45.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Today's hearing will examine the findings of our 8-month 
bipartisan investigation into the sexual abuse of women in 
Federal prisons.
    Before we proceed, viewers are advised that this hearing 
will discuss sexual violence and other deeply disturbing issues 
that we are duty-bound to bring to light. Anyone seeking mental 
health assistance can call the nationwide hotline at 988 to 
connect with a trained counselor.
    Eight months ago, as chair of PSI, I launched an 
investigation into the sexual abuse of women held in Federal 
prisons, and with Ranking Member Johnson's support, our 
bipartisan staff reviewed extensive non-public Bureau of 
Prisons (BOP) and whistleblower documents and conducted more 
than two dozen interviews with senior BOP leaders, 
whistleblowers, and survivors of prison sexual abuse.
    Our findings are deeply disturbing and demonstrate, in my 
view, that the BOP is failing systemically to prevent, detect, 
and address sexual abuse of prisoners by its own employees.
    The Subcommittee has found that Bureau of Prisons' 
employees sexually abused female prisoners in at least two-
thirds of Federal prisons that have held women over the past 
decade. We found that BOP has failed to prevent, detect, and 
stop recurring sexual abuse, including by senior prison 
officials.
    At Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Dublin in 
California, for example, both the warden and the chaplain 
sexually abused female prisoners.
    We found that BOP has failed to successfully implement the 
Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). For example, two prisons 
where multiple BOP employees were abusing multiple women over 
an extended period, FCI Dublin and Federal Correctional Complex 
(FCC) Coleman, nevertheless passed or were found to have 
exceeded the PREA audit criteria, which are mandated by 
Congress and intended to detect the risk of sexual abuse in BOP 
facilities.
    In the case of FCI Dublin, the PREA compliance officer--the 
official specifically tasked with ensuring compliance with the 
Federal law whose purpose is the elimination of prison rape--
was himself sexually abusing prisoners.
    In the case of FCC Coleman in Florida, all female prisoners 
had been transferred out of the facility 2 days before the PREA 
audit, making it impossible for the auditor to interview female 
prisoners despite the legal requirement that they interview 
inmates as part of the audit.
    Amidst more than 5,000 allegations of sexual abuse by BOP 
employees, we found at least 134 against female detainees were 
substantiated by BOP internal investigations or by criminal 
prosecutions.
    Given the fear of retaliation by survivors of sexual abuse, 
the apparent apathy by senior BOP officials at the facility, 
regional office, and headquarters levels, and severe 
shortcomings in the investigative practices implemented by 
BOP's Office of Internal Affairs (OIA) and the Department of 
Justice (DOJ) Inspector General (IG), I suspect the extent of 
abuse is significantly wider.
    Indeed, we found there is currently a backlog of 8,000 
internal affairs cases at the Bureau of Prisons, including at 
least hundreds of sexual abuse allegations against BOP 
employees that remain unresolved.
    DOJ's inspector general has found that BOP fails, at times, 
to properly credit allegations of sexual abuse brought by 
inmates. Multiple BOP employees who would later admit in sworn 
statements to sexually abusing prisoners have escaped criminal 
prosecution, due in part to weaknesses in the process by which 
BOP and the DOJ inspector general work together to investigate 
such allegations. In fact, several officers who admitted under 
oath to sexually abusing prisoners were able nevertheless to 
retire with benefits.
    Let me be absolutely clear: this situation is intolerable. 
Sexual abuse of inmates is a gross abuse of human and 
constitutional rights and cannot be tolerated by the U.S. 
Congress. It is cruel and unusual punishment that violates the 
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and basic 
standards of human decency.
    In July of this year, the former Director of BOP testified 
before this very Subcommittee and insisted that BOP was able to 
keep female prisoners safe from sexual abuse by BOP employees. 
We now know that that statement was unequivocally false.
    The purpose of today's hearing is to understand what has 
gone so badly wrong, and to establish and examine the facts 
upon which we must build reform. Progress begins with the 
truth. It requires a full and unflinching examination of 
grievous failure.
    On our first panel, we will hear from three survivors of 
sexual abuse at the hands of BOP employees that occurred while 
they were incarcerated in Federal prisons: Carolyn Richardson, 
Briane Moore, and Linda De La Rosa. All of their abusers have 
since been convicted.
    The firsthand accounts of survivors are essential, and I am 
deeply grateful to them for coming forward to testify before 
the U.S. Senate. Their bravery will make it easier for others 
to tell their stories.
    Next, we will hear from Professor Brenda V. Smith of 
American University, a national expert on sexual abuse in 
custodial settings. We will ask her to put the survivors' 
testimony in a broader context.
    Finally, we will question two government witnesses: the 
inspector general for the Department of Justice, Michael 
Horowitz, whose office both oversees BOP and investigates 
criminal misconduct by BOP employees, and the new BOP Director 
Colette Peters, who began her tenure just 6 months ago, in 
July.
    The hearing today is part of a 2-year bipartisan effort by 
this Subcommittee under my leadership to investigate conditions 
of incarceration and detention in the United States. From 
corruption at the U.S. Penitentiary Atlanta (USPA) to the 
Department of Justice's failure to count almost 1,000 deaths in 
custody across the country, to abusive and unnecessary 
gynecological procedures performed on women in Department of 
Homeland Security (DHS) custody.
    Ranking Member Johnson, I thank you sincerely for your 
assistance in these efforts and your staff.
    Before I yield to the Ranking Member for his opening 
statement, it is important to acknowledge that law enforcement 
professionals working in our prisons have among the hardest 
jobs in our country, and I believe the vast majority of BOP 
employees share our goals of ending sexual abuse once and for 
all in Federal prisons.
    I also want to state for the record the Subcommittee 
investigated sexual abuse of women in Federal prison because of 
some of their unique considerations. Women are more likely than 
male prisoners to have suffered from trauma and sexual abuse 
prior to incarceration, and particularly susceptible to 
subsequent abuse in a custodial setting. However, the 
Subcommittee fully acknowledges that sexual abuse is not 
limited to female prisoners.
    Finally, the Subcommittee's findings, which form the basis 
for today's hearing, are laid out in a bipartisan staff report, 
and I ask unanimous consent that this report be entered into 
the record.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The staff report appears in the Appendix on page 174.
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    Ranking Member Johnson.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON

    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You pretty well 
laid out the case, so I will just ask that my opening 
statement\2\ be entered in the record.
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    \2\ The prepared statement of Senator Johnson appears in the 
Appendix on page 48.
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    Senator Ossoff. Without objection.
    Senator Johnson. I think it is safe to say, based on your 
opening comments when you say that what we have uncovered is 
deeply disturbing, and it is, that I do not think anyone is 
looking forward to this hearing. I do not know about you but 
any movie I watch where there is any kind of sexual assault, I 
have to turn it off. I cannot watch it. That is fiction.
    We are going to be hearing some pretty horrific testimony 
today. It is the government's duty to incarcerate individuals, 
to punish people for crime, for keeping dangerous people away 
from the general public. I do not want anything in this hearing 
to downplay that very serious responsibility of government. It 
is not a pleasant responsibility. But it also the 
responsibility of government to make sure when we do 
incarcerate individuals that they are safe, that these types of 
rapes, these types of assaults do not occur.
    This is something that the Federal Government has 
recognized has been a problem dating back to 2003. I would say 
that was probably a pretty good-faith effort to try and develop 
data, do audits, to try and prevent this. You will never 
eliminate all of this, but I do not think there is any doubt 
that the government can do more. Looking at the inspector 
general's testimony, understanding what this Administration is 
doing, it does appear that they are making good-faith efforts 
to do more to try and prevent this.
    As deeply disturbing and although I am not looking forward 
to hearing any of this, I agree with you it is our 
responsibility. We cannot turn our face from it. We have to 
face this. We have to do everything we can to eliminate it, 
recognizing what a difficult task that really is.
    Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thank all of our staff for 
doing a good job of looking into something that is not fun to 
look at but that is our responsibility to look at and try and 
fix. Thank you.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ranking Member Johnson.
    We will now call our first panel of witnesses for this 
morning's hearing. Ms. Carolyn Richardson was formerly 
incarcerated in Metropolitan Corrections Center (MCC) in New 
York City. Ms. Briane Moore was formerly incarcerated at 
Federal Prison Camp (FPC) in Alderson, West Virginia. Ms. Linda 
De La Rosa was formerly incarcerated at the Federal Medical 
Center (FMC) in Lexington, Kentucky. Professor Brenda V. Smith 
is a national expert on sexual abuse in custodial settings.
    I appreciate all of you for being with us today. I look 
forward to your testimony.
    The rules of the Subcommittee require all witnesses to be 
sworn in, so at this time I would ask all of you to please to 
raise your right hand.
    Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give 
before this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
    Ms. Richardson. I do.
    Ms. Moore. I do.
    Ms. De La Rosa. I do.
    Ms. Smith. I do.
    Senator Ossoff. Let the record state that all witnesses 
answered in the affirmative.
    We are using a timing system today. Your written testimony 
will be printed in the record in its entirety. We would ask 
that you limit your oral testimony to approximately 5 minutes. 
You will see a timer in front of you. Please confirm, if you 
can, with the help of your counsel, if necessary, that your 
microphones are on, as indicated by the red light, before 
beginning.
    Ms. Richardson, at your convenience we will begin with you 
first please.

 TESTIMONY OF CAROLYN RICHARDSON,\1\ FORMERLY INCARCERATED IN 
                 THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS

    Ms. Richardson. Hello. Good morning. I would like to first 
express my sincere gratitude to Chairman Ossoff and Ranking 
Member Johnson for the opportunity to testify before you today. 
My name is Carolyn Richardson. I was incarcerated in Federal 
BOP custody from August 2016 through October 2022, when my 
motion for compassionate release was granted on the grounds of 
extraordinary compelling circumstances I suffered while I was 
at Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Richardson appears in the 
Appendix on page 49.
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    My testimony will focus on repeated sexual abuse that I 
suffered for several months at the hands of former correctional 
officer Colin Akparanta. While I struggle to speak about the 
abuse, I am hopeful that my testimony will give voice to 
survivors in similar circumstances and help prevent sexual 
crimes in BOP facilities.
    In August 2016, I was indicted for my participation in a 
conspiracy to procure and distribute oxycodone. I am deeply 
remorseful for what I had done, which was fueled by my own 
addiction to oxycodone. I accepted a guilty plea and was 
sentenced to 12 years in prison, knowing that I would miss so 
many years with my six children. What I did not know was that I 
would come to suffer neglect and abuse in BOP custody that will 
forever change my life.
    Prior to my arrest I had received an artificial iris 
transplant for cosmetic purposes. When I was taken into custody 
I had normal vision and was in good physical health. Shortly 
after arriving in MCC New York, in August 2016, I began to 
experience complications with my transplanted irises. BOP 
personnel failed to provide me with timely medical care and 
caused my eyesight to deteriorate beyond repair. When I was 
finally taken to an eye surgeon in January 2017, I learned that 
due to the delay I would be permanently legally blind and would 
require extensive eye treatment.
    Since then, I required periodic visits to outside 
hospitals, including seven eye surgeries. Former correctional 
officer Akparanta was the BOP correction officer tasked with 
taking me to these hospital appointments. I was in an extremely 
vulnerable state--physically, mentally, and spiritually--due to 
my medical condition, and Akparanta preyed on this fact.
    When he took me to doctors' appointments, Akparanta made 
himself out to be someone I could trust. He talked to me about 
faith and spirituality, which was of central importance to me 
in coping with my loss of vision. He brought me food and 
medicine that I needed, but that I could not otherwise obtain. 
Right at my most vulnerable I believed that here was a person 
who cared about me when no one else did. I was wrong.
    After several months, and around May 2018, Akparanta began 
to demand sexual favors in exchange for the food and medicine 
that he brought. He switched from working the day shift to the 
night shift, and came to my cell at night. I did not have a 
cellmate. He told me that my cell was in a perfect area because 
the security cameras could not see him coming or going. He was 
the only officer working the night shift in my unit, which 
consisted of approximately 40 female prisoners. He used a 
flashlight to signal to me that he was coming to my cell.
    I felt utterly powerless. I was a vision-impaired prisoner 
who was relying on Akparanta for basic life needs and 
transportation to medical appointments.
    For about 6 months, Akparanta regularly demanded sexual 
favors from me. He became increasingly rough and cruel in the 
way that he treated me. I told him that I did not like it, but 
he continued in his conduct.
    Before the assaults he would act like he cared about me, 
and would ask me what was wrong when I was looking down or sad. 
After the sexual assaults began he stopped showing any signs of 
caring, and all he wanted was sexual favors. I felt disgusted 
with him but also with myself. I felt worthless, like I was 
something less than human, that he could deal with as he 
wished.
    When I indicated that I did not like what he was doing, 
Akparanta suggested that we would both get in trouble if I were 
to tell. I believed him. I was terrified that he or other BOP 
staff would retaliate against me or take away my privileges. I 
was afraid of being questioned and doubted. I felt the officers 
would stick together instead of believing me or caring for me, 
especially after Akparanta manipulated me.
    I felt that everyone had ulterior motives, but then I felt 
ashamed and blamed myself for not speaking up about the abuse. 
I felt like I should have yelled and screamed when he was 
sexually assaulting me, even though at that time I felt that I 
had no real voice.
    Further details of these can be found in Exhibit A, a 
complaint filed in my civil lawsuit.
    Even though BOP has a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual 
abuse, in reality it is extremely difficult for inmates to step 
up and report the abuse. It feels that there is no real 
protection from the guards retaliating against you under a 
pretext, or harassing you with their authority.
    Even when the abuse is reported, inmates are kept in the 
dark about the progress of the investigation, and the repeated 
questioning is jarring and emotionally scarring to relive the 
trauma. I could personally gain a small measure of peace by 
cooperating with the criminal prosecution with Akparanta, 
resulting in his guilty plea, and by my civil lawsuit, which 
allowed me to gain information and knowledge about what 
happened.
    However, my hope is that no other inmate will have to 
suffer similar abuse and that safeguards will be put in place 
to ensure that.
    I am appreciative of this opportunity to share my 
experience that I had at MCC. I stand here for other female 
inmates who have experienced sexual abuse, many of whom may 
feel that they are alone, without anyone to care about their 
story, like I used to feel. I hope in sharing this we can 
improve our system and prevent this from ever happening again. 
Thank you.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you Ms. Richardson. Ms. Moore, you 
may now present your statement.

  TESTIMONY OF BRIANE MOORE,\1\ FORMERLY INCARCERATED IN THE 
                   FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS

    Ms. Moore. Good morning. Thank you for giving me the 
opportunity to speak. I am not an activist or someone who would 
normally use my voice like I am today. Speaking about my 
experience in such a public setting is incredibly hard. I am 
willing to do so because other women are still in prison and I 
am out. I hope that they will not have to go through what I 
went through.
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    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Moore appears in the Appendix on 
page 103.
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    I grew up in Illinois. My grandmother raised me, supported 
me, loved me. When I was 17 I had my daughter. I wanted to make 
money to support myself. I made the wrong decision. I sold 
drugs, crack cocaine to be exact. I was sentenced to 10 years 
in Federal prison. I accepted that because that was my choice 
at the time. I could have chosen to do something else and I 
chose to do that.
    I got 10 years in prison, and I accepted that as well, 
because as a result of doing that, consequences happened. I 
decided to take the time while I was in prison to improve 
myself, do my time so that I could get back home to my family.
    The prison guards tell you when you can sleep and when you 
can eat, when you can go. People who are in prison do not get 
to choose the location of the prison they are sent to. First I 
was sent to Alabama. I was there for about 2 years. I was 
transferred to FPC Alderson. Both prisons are about 12 hours 
away from my home. It was difficult for my family to visit. Not 
being able to see my daughter and grandmother was devastating.
    I put in a request to transfer prisons as a closer-to-home 
transfer so I could be closer to my family. BOP officials have 
the discretion to grant or deny requests. But I was determined 
to survive. I followed the rules. I took all the programs and 
opportunities available to me. I hoped the transfer request 
would eventually be granted. I knew that I needed to do my best 
for a chance at a transfer closer to home.
    Family is the most important thing to me. I was determined 
not to let prison break me. I was determined to return home a 
better mother.
    When I was in Federal prison in Alderson, in 2017, a 
captain began to target me. He took me to areas that were 
isolated in the prison, where there were no cameras. He told me 
that he knew I wanted to transfer to another prison. He said, 
``The paperwork goes through me.''
    In October 2017, the building officer ordered me to go to 
the captain's office. The captain then summoned me into his 
office. There was a secretary's office within the captain's 
office. When I arrived there was no secretary. After the 
captain had me alone he locked the secretary's door and closed 
his door behind him. He reminded me that the transfer went 
through him. He told me that if I did not follow his orders he 
would interfere with my transfer. He then raped me.
    To be clear, even before the captain spoke those words I 
knew he had the power to prevent me from being transferred to a 
prison closer to my family, closer to my daughter. He was a 
captain with total control over me. I had no choice but to 
obey. I always had to follow orders in prison. It is hard to 
fully describe how this felt. The captain already had complete 
control over my day-to-day life and was now unfortunately in 
control over my body.
    Using my desire to see my children, he threatened me to 
stay silent. The captain made it clear that if I wanted a 
transfer I had to accept the abuse. I felt powerless. The abuse 
continued.
    Before my request could go through for a transfer closer to 
home I escaped the abuse when a prison close to home reopened, 
which was Pekin. When they asked for volunteers I jumped on the 
opportunity to save myself. I left Alderson in December 2017, 
and before I left the captain knew I was leaving. He raped me 
one final time. In total, he raped me five times, sexual 
assault on other occasions.
    After the abuse I could not sleep full nights for months. I 
had reoccurring nightmares that played over and over like a 
broken record. I woke up in cold sweats. I would wake up crying 
after nightmares that the captain was trying to kill me for 
reporting the abuse. I isolated myself from others. I developed 
post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and had to seek mental 
health treatment.
    The captain abused his authority and power, and while he 
was raping me he was raping other women in prison. We were not 
protected. I had no power to stop the abuse. The captain had 
total power over me and he knew that. He knew that I had no 
control and could not say no. The captain knew that I knew 
that. He made sure to make sure that I knew that. He made sure 
that he could for me to know that he could make things worse 
for me.
    Even before this threat, I knew that if I reported him I 
could be placed in solitary confinement or shipped to special 
housing unit (SHU), shipped out to another prison away from my 
family, which was something I did not want to do. I saw this 
happen to other women in prison. They would tell their story 
and they would be shipped, and the officer would still be 
there.
    I left Alderson in 2017. After the investigation began the 
captain resigned and was prosecuted for sexually abusing me and 
other women at the prison. He plead guilty.
    I am here today 5 years later, and I want you to know that 
I am still suffering. This has changed the course of my life 
forever. I am a different person physically and emotionally 
because of this. I am still in mental health treatment. I have 
lost trust in the system. I knew prison would be tough--I 
accepted that. I will do punishment for my crimes. It was not 
easy doing time.
    I was sentenced and put in prison for choices I made. I was 
not sentenced to prison to be raped and abused while in prison. 
This should not have happened to me, and it should not have 
happened to anyone in prison.
    Speaking about this is not easy. The day I started to hear 
was the day I could talk about what happened to me without 
being afraid. Thank you for your time.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Moore, for your testimony. 
For the benefit of all of our panelists, you may hear various 
sounds from the clock, and those have nothing to do with our 
hearing but indicate to us what is happening on the Senate 
floor. Please do not be alarmed.
    Ms. Richardson, Ms. Moore, thank you so much for your 
testimony.
    Ms. De La Rosa, you may present your opening statement.

TESTIMONY OF LINDA DE LA ROSA,\1\ FORMERLY INCARCERATED IN THE 
                   FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS

    Ms. De La Rosa. Chairman Ossoff, Ranking Member Johnson, 
and Members of the Subcommittee, I am a victim and survivor of 
sexual abuse by a Federal correctional officer. That predator 
is now serving a 135-month sentence in a Federal prison. In 
2019, he sexually attacked me and three other women inmates at 
the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, which is a 
minimum-security prison. It took 3 years to arrest, prosecute, 
convict and sentence him.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. De La Rosa appears in the 
Appendix on page 109.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    On the one hand, I am grateful for the efforts of those in 
the Department of Justice who did help me and who successfully 
put my attacker away, in particular, the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation (FBI) Victim Specialist Cassie Young and 
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tashena Fannin.
    However, the Bureau of Prisons entirely failed. My attacker 
stayed at his job for years, even though BOP management and 
investigators knew he was a sexual predator. My life at FMC-
Lexington was a living hell.
    I believe my attacker had been investigated on numerous 
occasions for sex crimes against female inmates. FMC-Lexington 
management and investigators were well aware that female 
inmate-victims were reluctant to come forward because they 
rightly feared retaliation, which took many forms, including 
transfer to different facilities, solitary confinement, loss of 
early release rights, detrimental write-ups, loss of work 
privileges, and interference with vocational skills programs. I 
witnessed many examples of punishments handed out to other 
inmates that challenged or reported abuse by prison officials. 
The ongoing threat of retaliation stopped me and other inmates 
from filing complaints, let alone timely ones.
    Let me tell you what happened to me. I was transferred from 
Lexington. After reporting the sexual abuse that happened to me 
in Lexington, I was sent back to that facility. When I returned 
to Lexington, all of my belongings were missing. There were 
photos and letters from my son and daughter's father, both of 
whom had passed. They can never be replaced.
    When I returned I also learned my attacker was still 
working at that facility. Incredibly, FMC-Lexington management 
granted my attacker unrestricted and unsupervised contact with 
me on work details, which gave him one-on-one access to abuse 
or threaten to abuse me. Because of his position, my attacker 
could and did access my personal history files, recordings of 
my telephone calls and personal emails, giving him additional 
leverage to extract sexual favors and threaten my safety.
    The system failed at every level, management from the 
warden on down, repeatedly. They failed to monitor, supervise, 
discipline, and remove male correctional officers, predators 
sexually abusing female inmates. Special Investigative Services 
officers supposedly charged with investigating staff misconduct 
failed repeatedly to investigate known and suspected predators. 
It is not enough to call this horrible. I believe the problem 
is ``the old boys club.'' Prison staff--managers, 
investigators, correctional officers--they all work together 
for years, if not decades. No one wants to rock the boat, let 
alone listen to female inmates. There is no effective, 
independent oversight.
    The mission of the BOP is ``to protect society by confining 
offenders in the controlled environments of prisons . . . that 
are safe, humane . . . and appropriately secure.'' The agency 
failed me and my fellow inmates. We were knowingly confined in 
a facility that was unsafe, inhumane and unsecure. Nothing was 
done. That was wrong. It never should have happened.
    Senators, I make one request: stop this from happening, 
from repeating. Now. Nothing you are hearing today is new. You 
have the power and authority to force the system to change. 
Please use it. Thank you.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. De La Rosa.
    Dr. Smith, your opening statement, please.

  TESTIMONY OF BRENDA V. SMITH,\1\ PROFESSOR OF LAW, AMERICAN 
              UNIVERSITY WASHINGTON COLLEGE OF LAW

    Ms. Smith. First, I want to say how privileged I feel to be 
able to sit at the table with these survivors, because they are 
the ones who are doing the work to actually bring these issues 
to the fore. I thank you for your courage and for being willing 
to tell what has happened to you in custody.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Smith appears in the Appendix on 
page 112.
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    Good morning, Chairman, Ranking Member Johnson, and 
Committee Members. I am a law professor at the American 
University Washington College of Law. I founded the Project on 
Addressing Prison Rape in 1993, after successfully representing 
a class of over 500 women who experienced physical, sexual, 
medical, and psychological abuse as well as systematic 
inequality of services and opportunities in D.C. correctional 
facilities. I was appointed to the Prison Rape Elimination 
Commission in 1994, by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
    Having sat on the PREA Commission for a decade, there is no 
question that the Prison Rape Elimination Act standards could, 
if followed, prevent the abuse of women in custody. At the same 
time, we know that while the PREA standards outline a 
successful approach to preventing, reducing, and punishing 
sexual abuse in custody, agencies, as these witnesses testimony 
has identified, often do not follow the standards.
    Agencies complain that the standards are nitpicking and not 
consistent with their lived experience of people in custody or 
correctional settings. They also argue that women in custody 
are trying to game the system by claiming that they were 
abused. They claim that it would be too expensive or take too 
much time to follow the standards that would protect these 
women. They also argue that the standards are there, but you 
really do not have to pay attention until there is an audit.
    I am familiar with Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities 
because many of the D.C. women I represented served their 
sentences in Federal facilities and returned to the District of 
Columbia after discharge from Federal facilities. These women 
spoke of abuse they had observed or experienced in a number of 
the Federal facilities that are the subject of this hearing 
today. The most recent incidents involving FCI Dublin, MDC 
Brooklyn, FPC Alderson, and FMC Lexington are instructive but 
they are not unusual. In other words, this is not new behavior.
    The abusers represent staff from a broad cross-section of 
the workforce. We have a chaplain, correctional officers, 
volunteers, and wardens. This points to abuse that is systemic 
in nature. What is clear from these incidents is that staff had 
unfettered, uninterrupted access to women. They abused with 
impunity and at will. They abused women in their offices, in 
corridors, out of sight of cameras, and in collusion with other 
staff.
    They also abused the authority of their positions. One of 
the assailants was a chaplain, another a warden; these are 
people who we should be able to trust.
    These system actors and leaders had intercourse with the 
women, took nude images of them, and threatened them, as we 
have heard. One of the assailants ran the PREA training, for 
preventing prison sexual assault, while he was actively 
involved in abusing women prisoners.
    Given the systemic nature of this abuse, I have three 
recommendations that have the potential to provide women with 
greater protection from abuse.
    First, reform the audit process for the Prison Rape 
Elimination Act. PREA audits are supposed to identify problems 
or practices that affect the protection of people in custody 
from abuse. The current audit structure is not well designed to 
ensure its success. The requirements to become an auditor, and 
the marketplace for auditors, make it very difficult for anyone 
who does not work in corrections to become a DOJ-certified PREA 
auditor. Having said that, we all know how hard it is for an 
institution to investigate itself. Agencies hire and pay the 
auditors who conduct the audit, so in reality, auditors work 
for the very agencies that they audit, making independence 
difficult. This creates a financial disincentive to identify 
problems.
    Next, another suggestion. Some agencies are audited through 
consortia, which means that State corrections agencies from one 
agency will send their staff to audit another State's 
facilities in a round-robin arrangement. This has not 
eliminated the potential for conflicts of interest in those 
arrangements. There is a quid pro quo.
    Finally, the cost of audits and the time that agencies or 
third-party auditing bodies that employ auditors allow for the 
conduct of audits do not adequately compensate auditors or 
allow the time necessary to conduct the audit methodology laid 
out by DOJ. If there were time, then what could happen is they 
could actually go through and look closely at these 
institutions, interview women, interview outside folks, and be 
able to find problems.
    Each of the facilities that are the subject of the hearing 
passed their audits with only minimal issues identified. Again, 
neutral auditors, from an independent external auditing 
authority, diversifying the auditor pool to include individuals 
with experience working with victims. There also needs to be 
ongoing training for auditors with a focus on auditing 
investigation standards and meaningful responses to 
retaliation, because as we have heard, many of these women 
experienced and feared retaliation.
    I think the other thing that we have to do is address the 
conditions of confinement that create vulnerability for women 
in custody. Each of these women have identified common elements 
of vulnerability that relate to their victimization.
    Women, as you know, often bring multiple well-known 
vulnerabilities into the correctional setting--past histories 
of childhood and adult physical and sexual abuse, poverty, 
involvement with powerful systemic actors like courts, child 
protection, housing, and immigration authorities that control 
their existence, their future, and their families. These 
factors create the leverage of pressure that correctional staff 
employ to ensure compliance with both legitimate and 
illegitimate requests.
    Given this inequality of power, women bargain, capitulate, 
and comply, even as they fear for their lives, their freedom, 
and often for their families. Though there are constitutional 
limitations on cross-sex supervision, male staff still have 
found ways to have unfettered, unsupervised access to female 
inmates in their care.
    Clearly, identifying and implementing better supervision 
strategies are in order. These strategies include increasing 
the number of female staff at every level, including leadership 
at women's correctional facilities. They also include 
decreasing the numbers of women in custodial settings. Women 
inmates are still incarcerated for primarily nonviolent 
offenses. Increasing the opportunities for supervision in the 
community would also help keep women safe from the pervasive 
sexual abuse culture we are discussing today.
    Finally, we need vigorous prosecution of these cases and 
enhanced penalties. The penalties for abusing a person in 
custody should be commensurate with the harm and damage they do 
to women in custody, their families, the community, and to our 
ideals of the rule of law. The sentences that prison sex 
offenders receive are not commensurate with the injury that 
they inflict or the harm they cause. In my view, the penalties 
should be comparable to the offenses for other individual 
victims who have been framed by the law as unable to consent. 
That would include people with developmental and other 
disabilities, children, and individuals in institutional 
settings, including prisoners.
    Finally, what I want to say is that the abuse of women in 
custody has created a stain on our society. It is a stain that 
I do not believe can be cleaned. What I hope we can do is 
repair our broken systems. I hope we can go forward and do 
better for women in custody. We can create the conditions that 
provide safety for these women, provide safety for our 
communities, and actually improve the integrity of the 
correctional system. As a community and country, we can provide 
punishment where appropriate but also provide justice for 
people who are abused in custody.
    I thank you for this opportunity, and I look forward to 
answering your questions.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you very much, Professor Smith, and 
thank you to our first panel. Thank you Ms. Richardson, Ms. 
Moore, and Ms. De La Rosa, in particular, for having the 
strength to share these horrific ordeals that you endured with 
the U.S. Senate and the American public.
    I would like to begin, please, by discussing the imbalance 
in power that underlies so much of this abuse. Ms. De La Rosa, 
you made reference to this in your remarks, the power over 
transfer, the power over all aspects of your life. How did that 
feel, and how did that play a role in making you vulnerable to 
this abuse?
    Ms. De La Rosa. Senator, I felt trapped, powerless. There 
were so many things that were taken from me or times I was 
stuck in transit. I was held longer than I was supposed to be 
because of not being at a facility that could file my 
paperwork. I was imprisoned 6 months longer than I was supposed 
to be, for this investigation. There is so much we need to work 
on as far as being able to report it.
    Senator Ossoff. Ms. De La Rosa, the officer who assaulted 
you had previously been investigated----
    Ms. De La Rosa. Yes, sir.
    Senator Ossoff [continuing]. For sexually abusing other 
female prisoners.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Yes, sir.
    Senator Ossoff. But was still on the job.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Yes, sir.
    Senator Ossoff. You are in a Federal prison, supervised by 
a male officer who had complete control over all aspects of 
your life.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Yes, sir.
    Senator Ossoff. Unrestricted access to you while working.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Yes, sir.
    Senator Ossoff. Who eventually pled guilty to sexual abuse 
and was sentenced to 135 months in prison.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Yes, sir.
    Senator Ossoff. While that abuse was ongoing, did you have 
any safe outlet to report it? Did you feel you had any safe 
outlet to report it?
    Ms. De La Rosa. No, sir. In Lexington they have something 
called the ``penalty box,'' which is if an officer is under 
investigation they put them in the phone and email room. They 
listen to your phone calls and read your emails. Inmates would 
call it the ``hot box,'' but all officers called it the 
``penalty box.'' Any way that you can report something to 
outside staff on the PREA signs throughout the prison is an 
email or a phone number, but you would not feel safe reporting 
it when the officer you want to report is in the penalty box, 
listening to all of your phone calls and reading all of your 
emails.
    So no, at Lexington I did not feel safe reporting.
    Senator Ossoff. What kind of retaliation did you fear?
    Ms. De La Rosa. All of the retaliation that I got. I was 
working on an 8,000-hour welding apprenticeship. I got 
transferred to a prison that did not have that program. I was 
46 hours from completing that program. I was transferred to the 
prison that I was scared to be at. I got transferred straight 
back there after reporting it. I got put back at the prison 
that I had reported.
    All of my belongings ended up missing. There were letters 
from my son, my grandpa, my Paw Paw that passed, pictures over 
the last 9 years that I was incarcerated, of my child coming to 
see me, and he passed away. I cannot ever get those things 
back, letters he wrote me since he was 10 years old. I will 
never get those things back, and they came up missing.
    They tell you that whenever you tell on an officer that it 
is completely confidential, but all of those things that 
happened to me afterwards were not coincidence. They were not.
    Senator Ossoff. Access and proximity to your family. How 
did they play a role in your fear of retaliation and the 
retaliation that you experienced?
    Ms. De La Rosa. Not being able to make phone calls, 
constantly being put in, once Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-
19) started, ``quarantine.'' They would restart your 
quarantine, 21 days, with no phone calls, no anything. Every 
time they move you, you have 21 days, not being able to contact 
your family, not being able to have video visits with your 
kids, and for 9 years that is what my kids looked forward to 
every week. They can do anything they want, and they do.
    Senator Ossoff. Ms. Moore, I would like to ask you the same 
question, how access to family, proximity to family play a 
role. If you would not mind, Ms. Moore, just ensure your 
microphone is on. Thank you.
    Ms. Moore. Like she said, the same fear of getting incident 
reports for nothing, not being able to call home, not being 
able to have contact with those video visits. I did not 
necessarily have that happen where I was but I did fear 
retaliation, which is why I never reported it while I was still 
at the prison.
    My whole goal was to try to get closer to home. I put in a 
near-home transfer before I went to Anderson, and because 
Alderson needed head count I had to go there. That is how I 
ended up at Alderson.
    Again, here I am trying to fight to get closer to my family 
so that I can have visits, because I had one visit while I was 
there, for my daughter's birthday, and I did 7 years in prison. 
Being able to talk to my family and my grandmother, because she 
is older and sick, was very important to me. My daughter was 7 
when I went to prison, so that was very important to me.
    Like she said, the officers have a lot of control. They 
have a lot of control, and we really do not have a say-so. I 
had already been in prison with women who had reported stuff 
and been sent to county jails where the food is moldy and they 
are wearing underwear that had been previously worn. It is 
like, nobody wants to be uprooted from a prison that you have 
taken time to do programs in and be sent to another prison 
because you report this stuff. I am sure that is why a lot of 
people do not report, besides the retaliation.
    I had already heard that he had been under investigation 
before, but nothing was done. Who was I to report someone, 
thinking that something was going to happen, and I did not 
report it. They called me after I transferred prisons. I was at 
another prison before they called me to ask about it.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Moore. Ms. Richardson, I 
will have a question for you in the next round. At this time I 
am going to yield to Ranking Member Johnson for his first round 
of questions.
    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think Ms. Moore 
is really highlighting the most difficult aspect of this is the 
inability to report, the power that prison guards have over the 
prisoners, and how certainly some of them peripherally abuse 
that power.
    I want to quickly go down the table. We know, Ms. Moore, 
you never did report the sexual assaults. Correct?
    Ms. Moore. Correct.
    Senator Johnson. How did they ever come to light? Why are 
you sitting here before us? At what point in time--was it 
during the prosecution of your abuser?
    Ms. Moore. No. I guess the day after I transferred, they 
day after I left to go to Pekin from Alderson, he got walked 
off. Maybe a week or two later, they called me at the prison I 
was at. They called my counselor and he came down and got me, 
and said somebody was investigating. I do not know how they got 
my name, but they wanted to know what happened. At the time----
    Senator Johnson. Somehow somebody heard about your abuse. 
You might have talked to other fellow prisoners? Did you ever 
talk to anybody about it?
    Ms. Moore. Not really, no.
    Senator Johnson. Somehow the investigators found out that 
you may have been abused so they contacted you and then you 
told your story to the investigators.
    Ms. Moore. Yes. They asked if I wanted to tell my story, 
and at first I said no. Then they gave me a couple of days to 
give them a call back. I do not know. I know they have cameras 
in the administration building, so I do not know if maybe they 
went through the cameras and saw that I had been there.
    Senator Johnson. Ms. Richardson, what about you? Did you 
ever report this to anybody when you were in prison?
    Ms. Richardson. No, sir, I did not. Actually, I found out 
through a former inmate that Akparanta had been arrested and 
that empowered me to come forward. But prior to that I would 
have never told anyone because I was mandated to be there in 
MCC because I was on medical hold for my eyes, and I had 
already been sentenced.
    Senator Johnson. What about you, Ms. De La Rosa? Did you 
ever report this when you were a prisoner?
    Ms. De La Rosa. I was moved from Lexington to Bryant, 
Texas, to complete a program there, and when I was in Bryant, 
Texas, someone came and spoke with me and asked me about it. I 
was reluctant to talk to them at first, and I ended up 
reporting it while I was in Bryant, and shortly after that I 
was moved back.
    Senator Johnson. The only reason any of your situations 
came to light is because somebody investigating abuse came and 
talked to you.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Yes.
    Senator Johnson. Ms. Smith, being an expert in this area--
and again, I am not looking for a hard and fast answer. I doubt 
this has been researched. But it would seem that probably most 
cases of this kind of abuse go completely unreported.
    Ms. Smith. I think these cases are like sexual abuse in the 
community as well. Often those cases go unreported as well. To 
be victimized means that you do not have power, and I think it 
is that sense of powerlessness that makes you think that 
either: you cannot report; nobody is going to believe you; or 
that nothing is going to happen to help you. You believe you 
will not be protected because you were not protected in this 
situation.
    Senator Johnson. Chances are, based on the statistics we 
have, it is something like 8,000 complaints that have not been 
filed. That may still be the tip of the iceberg.
    Ms. Smith. Absolutely.
    Senator Johnson. Obviously, PREA, those audits, have not 
worked. Maybe they have in some cases, but they certainly have 
not eliminated sexual assaults.
    Ms. Smith. So, let us say with PREA, some aspects of it 
have worked, but some of the procedures have not. What I would 
say is that the audits, as I have testified, need a tremendous 
amount of work.
    Senator Johnson. Can any of you think of any process of 
reporting where you might feel safe enough to actually try and 
report it? I have a hard time thinking of one, quite honestly. 
It is a devilish problem. Ms. Smith, can you think of some kind 
of reporting? I mean, you find out a chaplain is doing the 
abuse of this, you would think that would be a place for 
somebody to go. If somebody set up inside the prison, in a 
position of power could be abusing. Where does the solution lie 
here?
    Ms. Smith. I think there are a number of issues. OK, so 
first of all you start with being able to report outside of the 
institution.
    Senator Johnson. Correct. Where would you go outside, and 
how would that be done when they are monitoring phone calls and 
email messages, that type of thing?
    Ms. Smith. The fact is that there should be a phone line 
that you can use that is not monitored, right? There should be 
a way to report out to a rape crisis center or an inspector 
general's office.
    Senator Johnson. But the prison guards are going to know 
that you are using that phone, right?
    Ms. Smith. Yes. But the fact that there is a potential for 
abuse, as there currently is already, does not mean that you do 
not take those steps.
    I think you also have to protect people from retaliation. 
What you are also hearing here is that these women did not 
report because they actually had no confidence at all that they 
would be believed----
    Senator Johnson. No, again--yes, the retaliation, the power 
is real.
    Ms. Smith. Exactly.
    Senator Johnson. The power is real, to transfer you away 
from your family. The power is real. It really does come down 
to, if we are going to really prevent this, there has to be 
some method of an anonymous reporting system that cannot be 
abused for other things prisoners may be doing from inside the 
prison. There is the real devilish problem here.
    Ms. Smith. Yes. Agree.
    Senator Johnson. Any of the three witnesses, can you think 
of a reporting system that you would have had confidence in? 
Can you think of one? I will start with you, Ms. De La Rosa. 
Can you think of something that, if it would have been 
available you might have used to try and report this, or is the 
power just such overwhelming and the threats of retaliation are 
so horrific that you just had to bear it?
    Ms. De La Rosa. I honestly cannot think of a way that you 
can report it that the staff will not know about.
    Senator Johnson. Ms. Moore, can you think of one?
    Ms. Moore. No.
    Senator Johnson. Ms. Richardson?
    Ms. Richardson. No, sir, because one thing is for sure is 
that wrong or right does not matter. They all stick together.
    Senator Johnson. Mr. Chairman, to me there is the crux of 
the problem that needs to be solved. How can people inside 
prisons report without having a very high probability of being 
retaliated against, against the very people that are abusing 
them? I think our next panel, that will be the main line of 
questioning I will be pursuing there. But thank you, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you very much, Ranking Member 
Johnson. Senator Padilla.

              OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PADILLA

    Senator Padilla. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you have so well 
laid out, the purpose of today's hearing is to address the 
sexual misconduct that plagues U.S. Federal prisons and the 
irreversible harm that it causes victims. While the various 
investigations tell us that abuse and exploitation has run 
rampant, there is no misconception that incidents are isolated 
to only the facilities explicitly mentioned.
    The horrendous reality is that detainee abuse is pervasive 
in facilities across the country. My office has received far 
too many reports about California facilities suffering from 
dangerous living conditions, year-long delays in providing 
adequate health care in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and 
yes, claims of sexual abuse and assault.
    Yesterday, Senators Durbin, Feinstein, Grassley, and I sent 
a follow-up letter to our original letter requesting more 
information from BOP concerning sexual misconduct allegations 
by its personnel. We reiterated that the Department of Justice 
must take immediate action to root out staff misconduct at BOP.
    This behavior cannot continue. The Bureau must act urgently 
to make meaningful, systemic improvements in facilities across 
the country.
    Now it has been reported that incarcerated individuals who 
are victims of sexual misconduct and abuse may become 
overwhelmed with crippling anxiety and fear of retaliation of 
incidents are reported. Correctional facilities should not be 
contributing to an environment where victims are terrified of 
reporting abuse due to fear of retaliation.
    Now one detainee in Dublin said that she was, and I will 
quote, ``overwhelmed with fear, anxiety, and anger, and cried 
uncontrollably'' after enduring abuse and retaliation for 
reporting it.
    Ms. Richardson, Ms. Moore, and Ms. De La Rosa, I want to 
thank you as well for being here today and for your courage to 
share your stories. No one should have to suffer what you have, 
and your testimony today is invaluable as we work to ensure 
that these abuses are prevented in the future.
    Would you each be willing to share a little bit about your 
mental health journey, how you have been able to manage, how 
you have been able to cope? Again, it has taken courage for you 
to be able to tell your story, to tell your story publicly, and 
to be here today to participate in this hearing. If you can 
talk a little bit about what the impacts have been, what 
resources or support you have been able to access to help.
    Ms. Richardson.
    Ms. Richardson. I was diagnosed with PTSD and I believe it 
is called persistent anxiety disorder. Since that diagnosis I 
have been on medication. Also my spirituality comes into play 
and keeps me grounded somewhat.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you. Ms. Moore.
    Ms. Moore. I continued to see a therapist at the prison 
that I was transferred to, and then the prison after that, and 
then when I got home. I have been out 3 years and I continue to 
see a therapist. I have not really had anxiety since I have 
been out of prison because I feel like I am not contained 
anymore, and so the retaliation is not as scary as it is in 
there.
    But with this, like before when they asked me if I wanted 
to do it, at first I was afraid because I felt like, what kind 
of retaliation can I get from this? My anxiety has been high, 
knowing that I am coming here to do this. But as I told my 
attorneys, I am not the only one who has went through this, and 
if my story can help somebody else, then maybe going through it 
or could potentially go through it, I decided to put my anxiety 
to the side. And like she said, my faith helps me.
    I have two children, and I work every day. I am trying not 
to use it as a crutch and let it control my life. I am trying 
to keep control of my life, keep the control of my life since I 
have it back after what happened, and I am trying to move on 
with my life. But part of this is a part of me healing by doing 
this today.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you. Ms. De La Rosa.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Anxiety has definitely been my biggest 
struggle. I was a lot more anxious prior to his incarceration. 
During his trial they did not even have him incarcerated. He 
got a bond and he was out, and my anxiety was so high during 
that time. But since he has been incarcerated I feel much 
safer.
    Senator Padilla. Thank you. Thank you all for again being 
able to speak about that publicly, because we know there is 
still a lot of stigma around mental health and accessing it, 
whether it is seeing a counselor, a therapist, or medication, 
that we have to overcome, because it is OK. It is OK to not 
feel OK.
    Professor Smith, I wonder if, in the brief time we have 
left, you can begin to discuss more generally the mental health 
impacts of correctional officer abuse on detainees, both while 
they are in custody and when they are no longer incarcerated.
    Ms. Smith. What we know is that a significant number of 
women who come into custodial settings come in with past 
histories of abuse and trauma, and that abuse, the abuse as 
these women have talked about, in custody actually deepens that 
existing trauma that they already have. As we know, there are 
not a lot of resources available for women in custody to 
actually deal with the trauma that they are experiencing, that 
they experienced before they were in custody, while they are in 
custody, and also that they will experience upon their return.
    I think that it is really important that we enhance those 
services in custodial settings and actually after women return 
to the community.
    Senator Padilla. OK. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. 
Chair.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Senator Padilla.
    Ms. Richardson, you stated in court, you described a 
meeting in 2017, where a BOP supervisor told you and other 
assembled female prisoners, quote, ``I don't want to hear 
nothing about my officers touching you.'' Another officer who 
ignored pleas for help from a group of female prisoners and 
said that your abuser, quote, ``will eventually get caught.'' 
What was it like to hear those things, and what, in your view, 
was it about MCC New York and the environment there that 
contributed to that culture?
    Ms. Richardson. Two of those statements were not actually 
made by me. It was made by the other ladies on the complaint. 
But I did hear one of the statements by Counselor Lewis, and at 
the time it did not register to me what it actually meant. But 
the dynamics of that place, like I said before, wrong or right 
does not matter. They all stuck together.
    Senator Ossoff. Unpack that a little bit for us please, Ms. 
Richardson.
    Ms. Richardson. Just like you said the statement that was 
Counselor Lewis. She is saying, ``I don't want to hear anything 
about what my officers are doing to you ladies.'' Everybody 
wants to cover their own butts so they basically--they do not 
do anything about what they hear. They sort of sweep it under 
the carpet.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Richardson.
    Ms. Moore, you explained how the captain would take you to 
isolated areas where there were not security cameras. Talk a 
little bit about the presence of cameras in the prison, the 
lack of coverage of certain areas in the prison, and how that 
contributed to an environment where you and others were 
vulnerable.
    Ms. Moore. I was at a camp so there are not very many 
cameras at a camp. Maybe they have some in the buildings, but 
Alderson, if you have ever been there, is really big, and 75 
percent of the place is not covered by cameras.
    In his office, of course his office does not have a camera 
in it. Certain parts of the building where we slept, where the 
counselors and the case managers worked, did not have cameras 
in those areas. Being at a camp, they say it is supposed to be 
low security, so I am assuming that is why they do not have as 
many cameras. But for things like this I feel like there could 
be more, even if it is just some outside, just more.
    What can you do about a camera in his office? He is the 
captain. Of course, they are probably not going to put a camera 
in his office. It was like he had the perfect opportunity to be 
in there with little visibility for anyone to see.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ms. Moore.
    Professor Smith, let us talk a little bit about the Prison 
Rape Elimination Act, and it is perhaps obvious given the 
title, but what is the purpose of the Prison Rape Elimination 
Act?
    Ms. Smith. The purpose is not only prevention but also 
detection, punishment, and to create the conditions, whether it 
is the law, whether it is policy, whether it is related to 
prosecution to end sexual abuse of people in custody. That is 
the aim.
    Senator Ossoff. Professor Smith, one of the most concerning 
aspects of our investigation is that we found these PREA audits 
were conducted during times when there was ongoing sexual abuse 
inside Dublin, inside Coleman, and yet the auditors found and 
stated in these reports that both facilities met or exceeded 
every PREA standard. Talk a little bit about that, and I have 
to ask the question, do these audits work?
    Ms. Smith. I think, as I testified, there are significant 
problems with the audit, and there need to be substantial 
improvements. Currently, as I mentioned, we have the people who 
are supposed to be being audited, auditing themselves, 
essentially. What happens, there is not a great deal of 
diversity. What we have is auditors who formerly worked as 
wardens. We have agencies who audit each other, and so there is 
a disincentive for them to actually find another agency out of 
compliance, because they are concerned that when they are 
audited that they will be found out of compliance.
    I think that what is really important is having neutral 
auditors, to have people who are clearly not a part of that 
system, and also to have audits of the audits, to actually go 
behind the audits in the same way that you did in your report, 
to actually identify, yes, there were zero complaints here but, 
we looked at case law and we looked at actual criminal 
complaints, and this does not match up with what you--the 
correctional agencies--are reporting.
    I think that it has to be more than the actual audit, but 
there actually has to be some other independent verification of 
that audit, which would include, as the Committee has done 
here, looking at whether there are complaints, looking at 
litigation, talking to external organizations, talking to 
people who are outside of the system.
    Senator Ossoff. My time remaining is brief, if you can 
attempt this one. Do you think it would be helpful to have more 
women working in facilities that incarcerate women?
    Ms. Smith. Absolutely, and I testified to that as well. The 
presence of female staff--in fact, one of the huge issues that 
come to bear in each of these situations is how did these male 
staff actually have unfettered access to women inmates? A door 
should have been open when they were alone with a female 
inmate. Female staff should have been walking through. In many 
places, what has happened is female staff are the only ones who 
are allowed to perform certain services or perform in certain 
ways with female inmates.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Professor Smith.
    Ranking Member Johnson, do you have further questions for 
this panel?
    Senator Johnson. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    As Professor Smith pointed out earlier, obviously rape and 
sexual assault occur throughout society. You could actually 
argue inside the walls of a prison might be one place where you 
could actually prevent it from happening. There are guards. 
There are people there to enforce the law. You could argue that 
it should not happen.
    I think with my last round of questioning here I wanted to 
try and get some sense of how pervasive it is within prison. 
Obviously, in society there are so many reasons why rape 
victims do not come forward. You have those same dynamics 
occurring with prisoners, plus you have the even more horrific 
power and fear of retaliation, which would prevent victims from 
coming forward and blowing the whistle.
    What I would like to ask the three witnesses is, within the 
spectrum of isolated to pervasive, having talked to fellow 
prisoners, do you have any sense whatsoever? Were you 
unfortunately a victim of an isolated problem? Maybe it is 
different for every facility. It probably is different for 
different facilities. But do you have any kind of sense 
whatsoever in terms of what kind of problem we are dealing with 
here, that you were the unfortunate victim of an isolated case 
or you are unfortunately the victim of something that is 
pervasive within the prison population, of women's prisons?
    I will start with you, Ms. Richardson.
    Ms. Richardson. I was one of seven victims from MCC that 
the officer pled guilty to, and that was in the pretrial 
facility that I was housed in for 4\1/2\ years. When I was 
transferred to Tallahassee, Florida, prior to me leaving in 
October, there were three inmates there who were sexually 
assaulted by an officer, and one officer was walked off the 
compound. It seems to be in all of the facilities.
    Senator Johnson. Yes. It is occurring. I am trying to get 
some sense. What is the total prison population of women, 
something like 17,000? Is that from my briefing? I will go to 
Ms. Moore. What is your sense, isolated or pervasive throughout 
prison systems?
    Ms. Moore. I think it is throughout the prison system as 
well. The captain abused more than just me. I never knew the 
ladies but there were other women on his case as well that came 
forward, for him to be prosecuted. It is not isolated.
    Senator Johnson. You are dealing with the same information 
we are looking at right now in terms of what has been in the 
end prosecuted, what has come to light. I am trying to get some 
sense, through conversations with fellow prisoners, do you have 
any sense whatsoever?
    I will go to Ms. De La Rosa for that.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Pervasive throughout. It is way more than 
just the people who have reported. It is throughout the system.
    Senator Johnson. That would also imply there are a lot more 
perpetrators.
    Ms. De La Rosa. Yes.
    Senator Johnson. Again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you 
forcing us to look at something we have to look at. We just do. 
We really do need the Department of Justice to step up to the 
plate, examine this carefully, utilize different tools, 
recognize that the PREA Act certainly has not eliminated this. 
We need more of a sense to figure out, really, how pervasive 
this is and what we can really do. I will, again, point out 
that the real problem is how can prisoners have any confidence 
to report?
    The other thing that I found bizarre, and we will cover 
this with our next panel too, is the strange situation if the 
Office of Internal Affairs compels a guard to do an interview 
and they find out that wrongdoing has occurred, that is a Get 
Out Of Jail Free card. I think we are going to have to 
obviously look to the Office of Inspector General (OIG) to step 
up their investigations, because I think the Supreme Court has 
ruled on that. That is the way it is going to be, compelled 
testimony.
    We are going to have to figure out a better way to 
investigate because that is one of the ways you reduce this, at 
least, would be more consistent prosecutions and very severe 
penalty, which, by the way, penalty includes incarceration. But 
even those perpetrators deserve to be in a prison that is safe 
and where they are not abused as well.
    This is a big problem, and as I said at the outset, it is 
not a fun problem to look at. It just is not. But it is one 
that we have to, and I appreciate the fact that you are forcing 
us to look at it.
    Senator Ossoff. Ranking Member Johnson, I very much 
appreciate your consistent support and engagement in this 
investigation and that of your staff. I think it sends a 
powerful message to the Department that there is strong 
bipartisan will to address this crisis, and we will have the 
opportunity to question government witnesses in the next panel.
    I want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one 
of you. I want to thank, in particular you, Ms. Richardson, Ms. 
Moore, and Ms. De La Rosa, for coming forward, for having the 
strength and courage to address the U.S. Senate in this 
setting, to speak publicly about what you endured, to help 
Senators and the entire Congress to understand the dynamics 
that led to this exploitation, that led to the horrific ordeals 
that you suffered. Please know that we will continue to work on 
the basis of what you shared with us, and I believe that the 
courage you have demonstrated today will inspire and empower 
others as well to share their stories.
    It is with gratitude and admiration for your courage that I 
thank you, and Professor Smith, thank you for lending your 
expertise to the Senate today, and I hope that as Senator 
Johnson and I continue to work together to identify solutions, 
either at the administrative or legislative level, that you 
will remain engaged with us.
    At this time we will excuse this panel. Thank you again for 
your contributions. We will take a brief recess and set up for 
the second panel of government witnesses.
    [Recess.]
    We will now call our second panel of witnesses for this 
afternoon's hearing.
    Michael Horowitz serves as the Inspector General for the 
Department of Justice. Colette Peters serves as the Director of 
the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
    The rules of this Subcommittee require all witnesses to be 
sworn in, so at this time I would ask you both to please stand 
and raise your right hand.
    Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give 
before this Subcommittee is the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
    Mr. Horowitz. I do.
    Ms. Peters. I do.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you. You may be seated. Let the 
record show that both witnesses have answered in the 
affirmative.
    Your written testimonies in full will be printed in the 
record, and I would ask that you seek to limit your oral 
testimony to approximately 5 minutes, as indicated by the 
clocks in front of you.
    Mr. Horowitz, we will hear from you first.

 TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE MICHAEL E. HOROWITZ,\1\ INSPECTOR 
              GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

    Mr. Horowitz. Thank you, Chairman Ossoff, Ranking Member 
Johnson, and Members of the Subcommittee.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Horowitz appear in the Appendix 
on page 156.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    During my tenure as inspector general I have identified for 
each of the five Attorneys General and Deputy Attorneys General 
that I have worked with that the safety and security of the 
Federal prisons is one of the most important and compelling 
issues facing the Department of Justice, so I am particularly 
pleased to be here today to talk about these issues and to work 
with the Committee on how to address them. I also want to thank 
you for the important and impactful report that was released 
today through the bipartisan work of the Committee.
    I also want to take a moment to thank Ms. De La Rosa, Ms. 
Moore, and Ms. Richardson for their courageous and compelling 
testimony that we heard in the first panel and for their 
bravery in cooperating with my office as we pursued the 
wrongdoers who committed the heinous acts that they described. 
Because of their assistance, those corrupt employees were held 
accountable in Federal court and are no longer able to 
terrorize other BOP inmates.
    No inmate should ever suffer sexual abuse in prison, and as 
your report details, female inmates are particularly vulnerable 
to such assaults. We must do everything we can to eradicate 
such behavior, and you have my commitment that the OIG will 
continue to make this fight against sexual assault one of our 
highest priorities.
    Indeed, our office regularly commits about 50 percent of 
our investigative resources to addressing criminal 
administrative wrongdoing by BOP employees, an outsized 
percentage of resources given that the BOP accounts for about 
30 percent of the Department's employees. However, I only have 
about 113 agents nationwide, which means I have the equivalent 
of 56 agents available to handle the thousands of allegations 
we receive across the 123 Federal prisons.
    It is clear that more independent oversight is needed, and 
that is why we have asked Congress, and I am working with 
Congress, to try and get more resources to do that kind of 
work.
    We continue to see widespread instances of sexual assault, 
most recently, as was discussed earlier, at the BOP's prison in 
Dublin, California, an all-female prison. Last week, the jury 
convicted the former warden of sexually assaulting eight 
inmates at the prison. The investigation that we have conducted 
with the FBI has also identified other Dublin employees and 
charged other Dublin employees, including the former chaplain, 
and we have a very active and ongoing investigation there.
    These problems did not happen overnight, and the BOP must 
do more to prevent and detect them before they become endemic 
at other institutions, as we have seen in Coleman and others, 
as we heard in the first panel.
    In short, these are substantial problems that need 
immediate attention and action, and the Subcommittee's report 
and the recommendations in it are going to be very valuable as 
we move forward to address them. We are also pleased by the 
recommendations contained in the Deputy Attorney General's 
recent report by her Task Force on Sexual Assault. Those 
recommendations need to be implemented promptly. I have also 
had several positive discussions with Directors Peters since 
she became the director in July of this year.
    Let me mention some additional issues that I am hoping the 
Committee will consider. First, the BOP needs to be, and take 
more timely and effective action at holding accountable corrupt 
BOP employees. Second, the BOP needs to rely on credible inmate 
testimony in its administrative misconducts proceedings. Third, 
the BOP must repair and improve its camera systems.
    Fourth, the BOP needs to implement an effective staff 
search and contraband policy. One of the things that I am 
hoping that the Committee will consider is a potential increase 
in the penalties for contraband smuggling. In some instances, 
those are merely misdemeanors, when contraband is smuggled into 
BOP prisons to provide contraband to inmates that they are 
grooming for their sexual assaults. That should be addressed.
    I am also taking several steps within the OIG to ensure 
that we can do a better job in our office, investigating and 
pursuing these allegations. I have included them in my 
testimony. Among them, using data analytics to identify 
problems early on, like you have recounted in FCI Coleman and 
what occurred there. We will take more action, and I am 
assuring this Committee that we will take those steps.
    I appreciate the support of this Committee and of the 
Congress in pursuing our work and allowing us to conduct our 
investigations. We will use all the tools you have provided us 
to take action to prevent this scourge from occurring.
    I look forward to answering your questions today, and thank 
you again for the important work that you have done.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Inspector General Horowitz.
    Director Peters.

TESTIMONY OF COLETTE S. PETERS,\1\ DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF 
                            PRISONS

    Ms. Peters. Good morning, Chairman Ossoff, Ranking Member 
Johnson, and Members of the Committee. I am honored to appear 
before you as the Bureau's 12th director and to provide 
leadership to corrections professionals in the largest 
corrections agency in the country.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Peters appear in the Appendix on 
page 167.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    After 30 years in public safety, working in roles from 
victim advocate and inspector general to serving as the 
director of the Oregon Department of Corrections, I can tell 
you that the topic of this hearing is of immense importance to 
me, I thank the Committee for their years of work, and I 
especially thank the victims who are here today, bravely 
sharing their heartbreaking and compelling stories.
    I welcome accountability and oversight, and I welcome this 
hearing. We must come to this work with our arms wide open. Our 
work with Congress, the Office of the Inspector General, and 
the Government Accountability Office (GAO), among others, has 
helped us identify and address areas of concerns within our 
agency. Sexual misconduct by Bureau employees is an issue of 
critical importance, and I also appreciate this Committee's 
support in this area.
    With your oversight I see this moment as an opportunity to 
work together to make our facilities safer for the people in 
our care and custody. I believe we all want the same thing: a 
safe, humane, and effective Federal Bureau of Prisons.
    Any kind of misconduct, especially sexual misconduct by 
Bureau employees, is always unacceptable and must not be 
tolerated. The vast majority of our employees come to work 
every day ready to serve in complex and challenging jobs that 
can also change lives and make our communities safer. I join 
these dedicated employees in being horrified by the small 
number of employees who engage in inappropriate, egregious, and 
criminal behavior. We must hold accountable those who violate 
that public trust, and we are strengthening our processes, 
realigning resources, and clearly communicating those 
expectations.
    Our work is to combat sexual misconduct, and that work is 
complex and must include prevention, reporting, investigation, 
discipline, and also prosecution. We must begin with assessing 
and then changing the culture and the environment in our 
facilities where need be. At all women's facilities, we want to 
ensure that gender responsive, and trauma-informed practices 
are being followed. We must train all Bureau employees on their 
obligation to report misconduct.
    Since leadership is essential to creating the appropriate 
culture, we are also examining how we select, supervise, and 
support wardens in our women's facilities. I believe that 
detection and accountability is critical to deterrence. We will 
leverage both technological and human resources (HR) to better 
detect and prevent sexual misconduct.
    On the technological side, we are working on upgrading 
camera technology and usage.
    I have also been very clear in my communication to Bureau 
employees that while I am proud of those who come to work every 
day dedicated to our core values and mission, for those that 
are not we will fetter them out and hold them accountable, up 
to and including termination and conviction. We will also not 
tolerate any acts of reprisal.
    There is no and should be no limitation on who may submit 
allegations of misconduct, and our Office of Internal Affairs 
works closely with the Office of Inspector General and other 
entities to ensure all obligations are reviewed. In this vein, 
we are looking into collaborating with formerly incarcerated 
individuals and using the lessons learned from their 
experience. Myself and other Bureau employees have already 
participated in two very powerful listening sessions, which 
included formerly incarcerated individuals.
    We too are bolstering and reorganizing investigative 
resources and personnel to support the Office of Internal 
Affairs in conducting timely, thorough, and unbiased 
investigations. This includes adding more than 40 employees to 
the OIA team, realigning reporting structure for those agents, 
and training investigators in trauma-informed techniques.
    When criminal misconduct is uncovered it is important that 
people are held accountable, either administratively or 
criminally, if legal action is warranted. That is why I would 
like to publicly thank the Inspector General for his commitment 
to ensuring the Bureau's success through the timely 
investigations, and I would like to thank the Deputy Attorney 
General for giving very clear direction to all U.S. Attorneys 
on prioritizing prosecution of criminal misconduct in the 
Bureau.
    As I have said many times, and I will repeat here today, I 
believe in good government, I believe in transparency, and I 
know we cannot do this work alone. We must come to this work, 
as I have said, with our arms wide open.
    Chairman Ossoff, Ranking Member Johnson, and Members of the 
Subcommittee, I am honored to speak on behalf of the Bureau and 
its dedicated employees. This concludes my opening statement 
and I look forward to your questions.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Director Peters, and I will 
begin.
    Director Peters, you were appointed over the summer. You 
have been on the job about 5 months. Correct?
    Ms. Peters. That is correct.
    Senator Ossoff. I think it is important to acknowledge--and 
I know Ranking Member Johnson and I, both acknowledge you are 
new in this post--the overwhelming majority, if not all, of the 
events presented in our report occurred prior to your tenure.
    Nevertheless, as you and I discussed in your confirmation, 
or your first hearing, rather, in the Judiciary Committee, the 
buck now stops with you. One thing I wanted to state at the 
outset of your responses to our questions today is that while 
we are deeply interested in your plans for reform, and you will 
have every opportunity to present them, the purpose of this 
hearing as well is to examine what happened in the past, what 
went wrong, and what has been broken at the Bureau of Prisons. 
You, in your capacity, leading the BOP, today are here to help 
us understand that. I hope that is clear, Director Peters.
    Ms. Peters. Very clear, Senator. Thank you.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you. I appreciate that. Same to you, 
Mr. Horowitz.
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes.
    Senator Ossoff. Ranking Member Johnson made reference to 
this in his questions to our prior panel, defining the scope of 
the problem. We agree that is vital. What we found in the 
course of this investigation is that in two-thirds of the 
Federal prisons that have housed women in the last 10 years, 
there has been sexual abuse of female prisoners by BOP 
employees. I believe this number is likely significantly 
higher, both in the number of facilities and the number of 
cases, in part because of the severe deficiencies we have 
identified in terms of how, Director Peters, the Office of 
Internal Affairs handles investigations of allegations of 
sexual abuse, the limitations that you have acknowledged, 
Inspector General Horowitz, in your office, as well as the 
widespread fear of retaliation and a culture of impunity that 
we have seen prevail in multiple of these cases.
    We start with Dublin. It was widely known, before it broke 
into the official record, that there was a serious problem at 
Dublin. There have been multiple convictions. There are over a 
dozen ongoing criminal investigations. This went on for years. 
The warden and the chaplain were sexually abusing prisoners.
    Before Dublin, multiple officers abusing multiple female 
inmates in other facilities--MCC New York, Metropolitan 
Detention Center (MDC) Brooklyn, FCC Coleman. Every few years, 
despite the culture of impunity, despite the fear of 
retaliation, it has broken into the public consciousness that 
there is a serious problem, and yet nothing systemic has been 
done to address it. In fact, when we asked senior BOP 
personnel, ``What was done after the Brooklyn facts came to 
light?'' ``What was done after the Coleman facts came to 
light?'' little or nothing in the way of a systemic attempt to 
address the issue.
    I want to understand from you, Director Peters, why. You 
have been in the job now for 5 months. Presumably you have 
debriefed senior leadership that is outgoing. Yes?
    Ms. Peters. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Ossoff. You have inspected prisons?
    Ms. Peters. Yes.
    Senator Ossoff. You have discussed these issues with 
regional directors, with wardens. You have, I assume, done your 
best to understand this so that you can be effective at 
addressing it.
    Before we get into what you are going to change, why is it 
that for 10 years, despite being known to BOP leadership that 
there was a serious problem, nothing was done to address it in 
any kind of systemic or effective way?
    Ms. Peters. Senator, I wish I had a good answer to that 
question. What I can tell you is that when you look at the 
institutions that you are highlighting--the Brooklyn, MCC New 
York, Dublin--and you see an institution that has been riveted 
with cases, it is hard to explain. It is hard to understand how 
systemic changes were not implemented.
    When you look at the power differential inside an 
institution there is no ability for an individual who is 
incarcerated to consent to any form of sexual relations. Then 
when you look at individuals like a warden and like a chaplain, 
there is something even more exponential there in terms of that 
power differential.
    I find that that situation is absolutely egregious, and it 
is about the systemic change. That is what we need to look at, 
Senator. We need to be able to look in all of the categories 
that I mentioned in my opening statement. We have to figure out 
how to prevent this. We have to figure out how to better 
investigate, streamline resources, hold people accountable, and 
work to prosecute those who deserve prosecution.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Director Peters. I appreciate 
that. Again I want to stipulate, I think it is important for 
the public to be reminded that the events that we are 
investigating predated your tenure. Nevertheless, I think you 
have to understand why systemic change was neither attempted 
nor did it succeed. Because for you to reform this vast 
bureaucracy, which is diseased--and this Subcommittee has done 
other work looking at the BOP in the last few months. We looked 
at corruption and misconduct in Atlanta, for example, and we 
examined, in the course of that hearing, a lack of 
accountability from the very top. You need to understand that 
in order to change it.
    Here is something I want to put to you and get your 
response, Director Peters. We, in the course of conducting this 
investigation, heard different things from folks at different 
levels of your organization. For example, we interviewed a 
former warden at Dublin, not the one who has been convicted but 
a former warden at Dublin, who described this as--and this is a 
quote from his interview--``bad people making bad choices.'' He 
identified it and I am now paraphrasing, but the gist of it was 
a few bad apples, people making the wrong choices, not so much 
systemic. He denied there was a culture of abuse.
    But we spoke with your chief of Internal Affairs, who 
described a culture of abuse, who described it as systemic at 
that facility.
    Have you, for example, talked to the regional director who 
was in charge at the time, to understand how it could have 
evaded their attention that this was ongoing at Dublin for so 
long, and how is it that there are these different views within 
your own bureaucracy? You have a former warden saying just a 
few bad apples, and your own Internal Affairs folks saying it 
was culture of abuse.
    Ms. Peters. Thank you, Senator. I have a tough time 
understanding how the warden drew that conclusion based on the 
facts as I observe them today. I have not spoken to that 
warden. I have had lengthy conversations with the administrator 
responsible for our Office of Internal Affairs, and we agree, 
that is a culture of abuse, that is a culture of misconduct, 
and that culture needs to be reset in order to ensure the 
safety and security of those in our care and custody. I think 
we do have systemic changes in the works that will help us 
reset that culture there and throughout the Federal Bureau of 
Prisons.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you. Ranking Member Johnson.
    Senator Johnson. Director Peters, how do you determine 
whether it is a few bad apples versus a culture of abuse? How 
do you make that determination systemically? Obviously, when 
you have the warden and the chaplain, you kind of figure that 
is probably a culture. But again, you have a number of 
facilities. How do you make that determination?
    Ms. Peters. Thank you, Senator. I think the Bureau is now 
putting together cultural assessments where we have teams who 
are trained to come in and assess that culture. I think some of 
the signs are absolutely, Senator, like you said, when it is 
high-level officials engaging in these egregious criminal acts, 
there is clearly a culture.
    But also when you find those who are incarcerated who 
openly tell our cultural assessment team that they do not feel 
comfortable coming forward, they do not feel like there are 
avenues to report in a way where they can report without fear 
of reprisal. It is those sorts of warning signs that we want to 
be able to find during these cultural assessments so that we do 
not have a Dublin repeat again, and so those individuals in our 
care and custody are safe.
    We look forward to continuing those cultural assessments 
and ensuring that we are taking all of that data into account.
    Senator Johnson. Do you have any idea, in terms of how 
somebody is being sexually abused inside a prison, can report 
that without having a very legitimate fear of retaliation or 
reprisal? Can you think of anything--understanding you have a 
hotline. They will know they are using the hotline. You provide 
confidential communication. That will be abused by drug 
traffickers. It is a tough nut to crack. Do you have any 
possible ideas of what might work?
    Ms. Peters. Thank you, Senator, and I appreciated those 
questions directly to those who were formerly incarcerated and 
now victims of these egregious acts that you asked earlier this 
morning.
    I think the answer is there has to be many avenues. First, 
we have to create a culture where they have developed 
relationships with the frontline officers and they do feel 
comfortable talking to them. Absent that, we have to develop a 
culture where family members and loved ones know that they too 
can report, internally or externally. I think the key--and as 
we listened to the women talk this morning--that ability to 
report independently, without any tracking from the Bureau, 
directly to the Inspector General's Office is a key component 
of being able to crack that nut.
    Senator Johnson. But again, they are in prison. How can 
they report without people knowing? Then, let us face it. They 
report it, and after a certain amount of time all of a sudden 
people are asking questions?
    Ms. Peters. That is right. Right now the way they can 
report directly to the Inspector General without us knowing is 
through Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer Systems (TRULINCS). 
They are able to send an email directly to the Inspector 
General, outlining their allegations and their concerns.
    You are absolutely right. Then investigators come, Senator, 
and questions are asked. The information is inside the 
institution. It cannot just be reporting alone. It has to be 
things like the convictions that we are seeing out of 
California, so that our Bureau employees know that if they 
engage in this type of behavior, or engage in acts of reprisal, 
that they will be held accountable. I think that level of 
prosecution and accountability will allow us, over time, to 
develop an environment where individuals can come forward 
without that fear of reprisal.
    Senator Johnson. In the PREA audits, what percentage of the 
inmates are questioned during those things in a confidential 
manner?
    Ms. Peters. Senator, I do not know the answer to that 
question.
    Senator Johnson. OK. That would certainly be one way, a 
more all-inclusive survey, surveillance audits, that type of 
thing.
    How many personnel do you have in the Office of Internal 
Affairs?
    Ms. Peters. I do not know the total number, but I do know 
that we added more than 40 positions to the Office of Internal 
Affairs in order to help us----
    Senator Johnson. It is probably in the hundreds?
    Ms. Peters. Yes.
    Senator Johnson. Inspector General Horowitz, do you know?
    Mr. Horowitz. I do not know the exact number in the BOP's 
operations. I do think it is--I would be guessing. I am not 
sure exactly how many they have in their internal affairs. As I 
said, we have about 113 agents around the country devoting 
about half their time to this.
    If I could answer, I think you have hit on, as you talked 
about in the first panel, a critically important question. As 
Director Peters said, there is this ability to send an email 
directly to us that is anonymized, that cannot be traced. The 
question, of course, is who is watching over people's shoulders 
when that occurs, where is the terminal, what happens when we 
respond, because obviously we want to respond, so that has to 
be addressed.
    But I think one of the things that is critically important 
is the culture question we have been talking about, because as 
you know from having run a business, the question is why are 
the employees not stepping forward? Why do we need the inmates, 
and only the inmates, to step forward?
    It is a very serious problem. We have the warden, a 
chaplain, and many other employees at the Dublin prison. We 
could talk about Brooklyn, MDC Brooklyn. We could talk about 
MCC New York. We could talk about FCI Atlanta. We could talk 
about Thompson Prison. We can keep going, right? Why are those 
employees not coming forward, when they have a predator among 
their fellow employees? They are the eyes and ears, along with 
the inmates. They are the ones who need to come forward. There 
needs to be that ability and accountability for people who are 
responsible and for people who should have come forward, 
including supervisors.
    Senator Johnson. Director Peters, I know local law 
enforcement, for a host of reasons, are having a very difficult 
time recruiting. The Defund the Police movement, the blame cops 
first, that type of thing. What kind of recruitment issues are 
you having within the Bureau of Prisons?
    Ms. Peters. Thank you for that question, Senator. First, I 
cannot agree more with what the inspector general just said. 
Our employees have an obligation to come forward. I think it 
ties directly into your next question, which is how do we hire 
the right people to come in, who want to change hearts and 
minds, who want to do the right thing, who have those core 
values, who have those ethics?
    If ever there was a time where it was difficult to hire at 
the Bureau of Prisons, it is now, for all the reasons you just 
mentioned, Senator. It was difficult to hire before the 
pandemic. Then the pandemic hit and made these jobs even less 
attractive, as well as the other issues that you just raised, 
in the field of law enforcement.
    One of our top priorities is recruitment and retention 
strategies, and we have been working diligently, internal with 
the Bureau, but we have also reached out to two organizations 
and contracted with them in hopes that we can rely on their 
expertise to improve our ability to hire not just people but 
the right people for this business.
    Senator Johnson. If you will indulge me for one more point, 
maybe question. There is a real problem of false reports. 
Correct? Do either of you have any indication of how 
significant a problem that is? Let us face it. You are talking 
about people who have committed crimes. Some of them maybe are 
not the most honorable or most honest, and it is not a bad way 
to retaliate against a guard either.
    How does Bureau of Prisons, how does the Office of Internal 
Affairs, how the Office of Inspector General try and sift 
through the true claims versus the fraudulent ones?
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes, it is an excellent question, Senator. It 
is something, actually, having done police corruption cases 
back when I was a Federal prosecutor in New York, was one of 
the key questions also, which is you had a lot of allegations 
against the bad cops, but you had allegations against the good 
cops because the drug dealers knew that was a convenient way--
or thought it was, at least--to impact them.
    You have to be very careful as investigators to understand 
that. Frankly, the only way you do it is by getting the 
complaints, carefully vetting them, and not jumping to a 
conclusion, and that is one of the challenges we face also, 
particularly because it is so challenging to get into the 
prison to see if there is corroboration, and this is where 
cameras come in. I could talk about this for days. It is not 
only on sexual abuse, it is on assaults in prison. How many 
times do we get a complaint that an inmate was assaulted by 
another correctional officer? A lot of those are false, because 
they had an injury and it was their own doing. We do not have a 
camera. There is no excuse for that, none whatsoever.
    Senator Johnson. By the way, I completely agree with that, 
and that is just table stakes. That has to be fixed. The 
cameras have to be fixed. They have got to provide, as much as 
possible, 100 percent coverage. That would take care of an 
awful lot of this. In the scheme of things, probably one of the 
most cost-effective ways of really addressing this.
    Mr. Horowitz. You are a thousand percent right.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Ranking Member Johnson. I would 
note, as a point of personal privilege, Senator Lankford, that 
Senator Grassley and I have the Prison Camera Reform Act. It 
has passed the Senate unanimously. Any help that anybody in 
this room can muster to get that through the House before this 
Congress ends would be deeply appreciated.
    Senator Lankford.

             OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD

    Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you to 
both of you for your work. I have several questions on this 
topic and a couple of other questions because it is unique to 
be able to sit down with both of you on that. I want to take 
advantage of that moment.
    I want to pick up, Director Peters, in this discussion 
about cameras. That was actually my first question. A common 
story on the sexual assault that we have heard already was that 
the assault was happening with staff members in the locations 
where they were not monitored. How do we get that fixed? In the 
meantime, how do we make sure that, until we get cameras and 
monitoring in those locations, we get additional staff eyes and 
ears in those locations, or certain policies that if you are 
passing through these certain locations you cannot do it one-
on-one? What is in process right now?
    Ms. Peters. Thank you, Senator. I could not agree more with 
your sentiments or that of the Inspector General. In my 30 
years in public safety, having formerly been the Inspector 
General of Oregon and the Director of the Oregon Department of 
Corrections, technology and camera usage is key.
    You are absolutely right. The stories we heard this 
morning, people know where those cameras are, both my employees 
and those in our care and custody, and probably more 
importantly, they know where those cameras are not.
    Senator Lankford. Right.
    Ms. Peters. The more that we can improve that technology 
inside, in my experience I have seen this type of behavior and 
other non-sexual behavior decrease dramatically with the 
introduction of cameras, both static cameras inside the 
institution and also the usage of body cameras.
    One of the concerns I have today, as the new director of 
the Bureau, is the lack of resources that we have for the 
camera installation. The time it is going to take to install 
these cameras that have been approved, based on the resources 
we have, is concerning to me. I always appreciate the support 
of Congress in establishing those resources so that we can 
ensure that those institutions are safe and secure, with the 
most upgraded technology possible.
    Senator Lankford. Thank you. We appreciate that. We look 
forward to getting a chance to track what facilities were 
chosen first, what the process was for the rollout of that. 
That will be important to see, as well, how that actually 
happens, and how those priorities are actually set.
    While I am on the technology conversation, different 
subject on this but still technology related to this has been 
the microjammers in the managed access. That is a security 
issue not only within the prison but outside the prison for 
individuals to not be basically stalked from inside the prison 
or to use contraband cellphones to be able to communicate with 
other prisoners, to coordinate activities within the prison as 
well.
    This has been one I have worked on for years. I have 
continued to be able to push. There have been pilot programs, 
but we have not seen wide distribution. The technology 
currently exists to do managed access or microjamming in all of 
our facilities, but it is not being rolled out quickly. What is 
needed to do that? Where does that land on your priority list?
    Ms. Peters. I could not agree more, and the Inspector 
General alluded to this in his opening comments. Contraband is 
the beginning of sexual assault, and so eradicating the use of 
cellphones inside our institutions for the various reasons that 
you just talked about, addressing this issue of drones, which 
is the new way to introduce contraband inside our institutions, 
and really figuring out how to ensure that that type of 
technology is not the introduction of further criminality.
    At the core of the Bureau has to be safety and security, 
and this issue is really important to me. To answer your 
question, it is about resources. It is about funding and being 
able to ensure that that technology is kept outside of our 
institutions. Absent that funding, we are relying, in some of 
our institutions, on local law enforcement to come in with 
their cell dogs, if you will, their cellphone dogs, to help us 
figure out where those cellphones are and how to ensure that 
the least amount of contraband is being introduced into our 
institutions.
    Senator Lankford. Mr. Horowitz, do you want to comment on 
that as well?
    Mr. Horowitz. It is something, Senator, I know you have 
been working on and something we have been writing about for 10 
years now. Other States are doing it. Long ago, finally the 
BOP--and I appreciate them--finally taking that effort. But as 
Director Peters said, cellphones in a prison are a deadly 
weapon.
    Senator Lankford. Right.
    Mr. Horowitz. We did a case in Puerto Rico where it was 
used to put a hit on a correctional officer. They run drug 
businesses. They are used to groom future abused inmates. You 
know what? Smuggling a cellphone into prison is a misdemeanor.
    Senator Lankford. Right. Yes. There are several issues that 
we have to resolve here, both the disincentive to be able to 
bring that in, the consequences for smuggling that into, 
whether that be a drone or whether that be a staff member, 
however they may get that in, a contractor may get that 
cellphone in.
    But for the longest, States, local entities could not do 
this jamming because it was blocked in Federal law. This is 
still a big issue for us, and we are still blocking the 
microjamming, that the technology is there. We are acting like 
this is 20 years ago, but the technology is there and the 
managed access where it is being used is being used effectively 
to deter future crimes that are there.
    I appreciate the engagement. This is an area that we have 
to continue to advance on to make our prisons more secure and 
our staff that are there, that the vast majority are good 
actors in that, to continue to protect them as well.
    Director Peters, I want to ask you, as well, about the 
First Step Act, and I am going to make a quick comment and move 
on to other things. One of the aspects of the First Step Act 
was actually outside groups being allowed to do the annual 
recidivism work. This has always been very difficult for the 
Bureau of Prisons to allow outside entities to come in and do 
this. It is very common in State and county facilities. There 
are very popular programs that are done in State and county 
facilities on recidivism.
    But the Bureau of Prisons has continued to lock them out. 
Even after the First Step Act is passed, many have applied and 
few are actually getting in, to do that work. Faith-based 
entities and others are trying to step in and they are being 
blocked out to do that. I would like to have a follow-up 
conversation with you and your team on this. I met with the 
previous director on this, and what I really got was a ``We are 
thinking about it. We are working on it. There is no 
requirement to many.'' But it was very clear from Congress, 
start allowing some outside groups to work on recidivism issues 
within our Federal Bureau of Prisons as we do in State and 
Federal.
    Will you commit to meet with me on that so we can get a 
chance to talk about it?
    Ms. Peters. I look forward to the conversation.
    Senator Lankford. Thank you. We do want to help in that 
area, and Congress has spoken clearly on this.
    We have talked a lot about staff-to-inmates assaults. This 
continues to be an issue within inmates as well. I have a 
culturally difficult area that you have to deal with all the 
time on this, and that is the transgender population that is 
now in the Bureau of Prisons care.
    As of June of this year, the best numbers that I have, we 
have 1,427 individuals in Bureau of Prisons custody who are 
transgender. Of those, 72 percent of those are male. Of those, 
47 percent of those male individuals are currently incarcerated 
for sex crimes.
    My question is, how are we protecting other inmates where 
we have individuals that have a sex crimes conviction? They 
have currently transitioned already and they are in another 
facility where they are biologically male in a female prison or 
biologically female in a male prison. Based on that, what 
policies are in place to protect other inmates? I have read 
through some of the areas on the policy to honor those 
individuals and the gender that they have chosen, but what 
about for other individuals that are in that prison as well, 
and what are you seeing?
    Ms. Peters. Thank you, Senator. This has been an issue that 
I have been personally working on as the former Director of the 
Department of Corrections and, of course, now as the Director 
of the Bureau of Prisons. The bottom-line answer is safety and 
security and individualized case management, not making 
sweeping decisions around our trans population but really 
looking at that individual sitting in front of you, what their 
situation is, what is the safety and security of the 
institution we are considering assigning them to, and then 
training our employees to understand the complexities of 
housing individuals who are trans inside of our institutions, 
and ensuring not just their safety but as you said, Senator, 
the safety of those who are incarcerated and the safety of our 
employees.
    Senator Lankford. Right. I appreciate that. Mr. Chairman, 
thank you for the little bit of extra time on this. Can I make 
one more follow-up statement on that?
    When I read through the Bureau of Prisons transgender 
policy it has a section there where it says, ``Transgender 
inmates shall be given the opportunity to shower separate from 
other inmates when individual shower stalls are unavailable. 
The agency shall not place transgender or intersexed inmates in 
dedicated facilities units or weighing solely on the basis of 
such identification or status.''
    That gives some rights to them. Is that also extended to 
other individuals? If a biological male is placed in a female 
prison, do the other prisoners there also have the same rights 
on protecting themselves as well, to saying, hey, this is also 
our preference, to not be housed with an individual that is a 
biological male, especially one that is currently incarcerated 
for sex crimes?
    Ms. Peters. Senator, I think that obligation and that onus 
is on us, not those who are incarcerated. It is our obligation 
to ensure that we are placing them on units where they are safe 
and the people on those units are also safe. I would not want 
to put that ownership on the adults in custody to determine 
their safety and security. That is an issue that lies with us.
    Senator Lankford. Right. But based on this policy, a 
transgender inmate is given the opportunity to be able to 
choose. What I am asking is, do the individuals that they are 
housed with, do they also get that same opportunity, or is that 
opportunity for choice only given to the transgender inmate?
    Ms. Peters. The opportunity to provide input is only given 
to that transgender inmate. The choice of placement is not up 
to the individual that is incarcerated. That is on us to make 
that security and housing placement.
    Senator Lankford. The opportunity to give input is not 
given to the other folks that they are placed with that are not 
transgender?
    Ms. Peters. That is correct.
    Senator Lankford. Why?
    Ms. Peters. I think that it is really important for us to 
own that safety and security and that placement decision. We 
are the experts in corrections. We are the ones that need to 
determine where those individuals can be appropriately housed.
    Senator Lankford. You have also got a situation where some 
people get input and some people do not on that, and I think if 
you are going to give input to individuals on housing and 
safety and what they feel secure, their own background and 
perspective, I think that should be given to all in that 
situation.
    Ms. Peters. Thank you.
    Senator Lankford. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Senator Lankford.
    Investigating the abuse of incarcerated women by BOP 
employees, I want to return to some questions about management, 
accountability, what has gone wrong for the last 10 years such 
that there has been no systemic effort to address this crisis 
despite acknowledgment today from the inspector general that it 
is widespread.
    Let me begin by saying we found approximately 5,200 
allegations of sexual abuse targeting inmates by BOP employees 
over the last decade. As the Ranking Member noted, not all of 
them will be valid. We also heard, however, from three 
survivors in the first panel, none of whom themselves made a 
complaint. Given the fear of retaliation, given the power that 
BOP employees have over the lives of those in their custody, it 
stands to reason that there are a substantial number of 
incidents where no complaint is made.
    We also found, to our shock, that the Office of Internal 
Affairs, Director Peters, has an 8,000-case backlog, including 
at least hundreds of sexual abuse allegations. The first 
question for you this round is, how and by when will you clear 
it?
    Ms. Peters. Thank you, Senator. I spoke earlier. We have 
added more than 40 positions to the Office of Internal Affairs 
to help shore up that backlog. I think when you talk about, 
Senator, what has gone wrong over the last 10 years it has been 
lack of resources. It has been a lack of accountability. When 
you have investigations open for as long as we have had it is 
hard to hold people accountable at the end of those 
investigations.
    It is my hope that those additional positions will help 
shore up that backlog. But as you know, and from the testimony 
of the administrator to you from our Office of Internal 
Affairs, even those additional resources, it is going to 
require us 2 years to clear that backlog.
    Senator Ossoff. Two years. Understood, Director Peters. I 
hope that those sexual abuse allegations will be prioritized as 
you work through those 8,000 cases. I recognize the resource 
constraints but I think, Ranking Member Johnson, it is fair to 
say we hear pretty consistently that the solution to 
intractable bureaucratic deficiencies is more funding and more 
personnel, and sometimes that is true, but there are deeper 
management problems here.
    Director Peters, I want to discuss a little bit about how 
you are approaching this, again, with the stipulation that you 
have been on the job for 5 months, you are new to this role, 
you are taking charge of the institution and these events 
predated your tenure, how you are going to handle ensuring that 
you have all of the information about what is happening within 
your facilities, that the regional directors have all of the 
necessary information about what is happening in their 
facilities.
    How could it be, based upon your experience thus far in the 
role and your experience managing this organization the last 5 
months, for example, that the regional director responsible for 
Dublin would have been unaware that the chaplain and the warden 
and other employees, now over a dozen investigations, were 
abusing inmates, such that it spilled out into the Associated 
Press (AP) reporting that it dubbed ``The Rape Club''? Why was 
the regional director unaware?
    Ms. Peters. Thank you, Senator. In my 18 years in adult 
corrections this is one of the biggest questions I have been 
faced with since I have taken on this new role. Having been in 
institutions countless times, understanding how corrections 
works, the warden cannot leave his or her office without people 
knowing, so how this type of behavior happened, unaccounted 
for, without people stepping forward, I do not understand it.
    But what I have been working on is sending very clear 
messages to every member of my executive team and the wardens 
that I must know about the good, the bad, and the ugly that is 
happening inside this organization, which means they too need 
to know. They need to have a pulse on what is happening in 
their regions and in their institutions.
    Going back to the previous question, it starts with the 
investigators. One of the changes that we made was to ensure 
that the investigators that are handling these very significant 
sexual abuse cases report to headquarters. There needs to be 
more accountability in headquarters. There needs to be more 
accountability in the Director's Office. We are going to ensure 
that that reporting authority is changed, and then myself and 
the Deputy Director will be meeting with the administrator of 
OIA and our HR division Assistant Director regularly to review 
those cases.
    Also as it relates to the broader leadership structure, we 
are really looking at how those appointments are made, how we 
recruit for those positions, who fills those positions. But I 
have also sent a very clear message to the organization that we 
are going to be transparent and that we need to be aware of 
what is happening inside our institutions.
    Senator Ossoff. All well noted, Director Peters.
    Returning to the question--and I think it is important that 
the Congress and you personally have answers to these specific 
questions--how is it that the regional director, with direct 
responsibility for FCI Dublin, did not know the extent of 
ongoing abuse in a facility for which they were directly 
responsible? If you have not, will you seek to speak with that 
person to understand how they possibly could have been blind to 
that severe abuse happening on their watch?
    Ms. Peters. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Director Peters.
    One of our courageous witnesses from the first panel, Ms. 
De La Rosa, who was assaulted at Lexington, described the 
culture of the institution as an ``old boys' club.'' What do 
you think she meant by that?
    Ms. Peters. I would not want to surmise what she meant by 
that, Senator.
    Senator Ossoff. I think you probably have an idea.
    Ms. Peters. Senator, I think the notion of an old boys' 
club, as I have seen and experienced in my career, is one where 
decisions are made often behind closed doors, they are often 
made without women in the room, and I assume that is what she 
is speaking to.
    Senator Ossoff. Inspector General Horowitz, you made this 
point in the previous round of questions, not just that BOP 
employees are not reporting when they are aware of abuse that 
is perpetrated by their colleagues, but, in fact, what we heard 
from the survivors who testified in the first panel is a 
culture of mutual protection. Talk a little bit about that 
please, Mr. Horowitz.
    Mr. Horowitz. That is one of the biggest challenges we 
face. These are not secrets. The warden taking these actions, 
the chaplain taking these actions, other inmates taking these 
actions, they are not secret. You mentioned Atlanta, the 
Federal prison there, that was essentially closed for a period 
of time. When they tossed the prison to go look, we had been 
doing case after case there. Dozens of phones found. Other 
contraband found. It is not a problem that happened overnight. 
In fact, we looked at the past audit reports. They got passes. 
But if you read those reports, you could not miss the problem.
    There needs to be more ownership at the director and senior 
levels of the BOP, at the regional levels of the BOP, and there 
has to be put in place a process by which the good actors, the 
people who do not want to be working next to a predator--and I 
think that is probably most employees--are comfortable coming 
forward and reporting it, knowing they are not only not going 
to get retaliated against for doing that but they are going to 
be held on a pedestal and supported by the organization, rather 
than have the people who are engaged in the wrongdoing 
promoted.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Horowitz. Senator Johnson.
    Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I am very 
mindful of the fact that this hearing really is about prison 
personnel preying on prisoners. I got that. But I think Senator 
Lankford brought up a pretty relevant point as well that, 
certainly coming into this hearing I was thinking about to what 
extent are there sexual assaults occurring between prisoners?
    Director Peters, how many biological males are being housed 
with biological females in Federal prisons?
    Ms. Peters. Senator, I do not have an answer to that today.
    Senator Johnson. Do we have some?
    Ms. Peters. Yes, Senator.
    Senator Johnson. I will go on the record and I will not 
belabor this point. Let me go on the record, when we are 
incarcerating somebody because they have committed a crime, we 
have taken away their right of moving freely around society, I 
would say they have no right to determine, if you are a 
biological male, to be housed with biological females. They 
have no right. That is insane policy. When we are talking about 
sexual assaults, to have the Federal Government engage in a 
policy that allows biological males to choose to be housed and 
come in close proximity with female prisoners. That is insane. 
That is something Congress probably ought to address if the 
Administration is not smart enough to reverse this policy.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Senator Johnson.
    Director Peters, let us talk about how the BOP implements 
the Prison Rape Elimination Act, whose purpose is indeed in the 
name of the legislation. It is to eliminate prison rape. We 
must dispense of any notion that there is any inevitable level 
or any acceptable level of sexual abuse of inmates by BOP 
employees. Our objective, our imperative, our moral obligation, 
and your moral obligation, Director Peters, as I believe you 
know and have stated you accept, is to eliminate sexual abuse 
of those in your custody.
    I was pleased to hear you describe the possibility that 
this hearing could be a turning point. Those were your words, a 
turning point. Because again--I am repeating this so that the 
public viewing this hearing understands this because it is 
important--you are new to this job, and the events that we are 
describing did not occur under your tenure.
    But now that you are in this role, I want to respectfully 
tell you that I believe your tenure will be judged by whether 
you succeed in eliminating the sexual abuse of those who are in 
your custody. I think this is your highest and most immediate 
moral imperative in this position.
    Prison Rape Elimination Act, audits are conducted 
periodically to assess the compliance of BOP facilities. It is 
correct, is it not, that those audits are viewed, and they have 
testified to it in a recent subcommittee by BOP leadership as 
an essential tool.
    Ms. Peters. That is correct, Senator.
    Senator Ossoff. Help us to understand--again, you were not 
in the role at the time, but you need to understand this--help 
us to understand how it is that, let us take Dublin and 
Coleman, two facilities with widespread, in the case of Dublin, 
high-level, ongoing sexual abuse, months, in some cases years, 
could both pass their PREA audits during the period in 
question?
    Ms. Peters. Thank you, Senator, for the question. I was 
with the Oregon Department of Corrections when the Prison Rape 
Elimination Act was passed. I was the inspector general as we 
implemented those recommendations. It is an issue with every 
corrections agency. We had hoped that those standards would 
eliminate sexual misconduct, as you mention but what we have 
learned is that is only one tool in our toolbox. Those audits 
come in and ensure that the institution is compliant with the 
Federal standards that were created. It does not address 
cultural issues. I think there are, back to my opening 
statement, other avenues and other tools that we need to rely 
on in order to work toward eliminating sexual misconduct inside 
of our institutions.
    I heard the professor speak earlier. There are concerns 
about how audits are conducted. In some State correctional 
systems, as she alluded to, some audit themselves. Some rely on 
other jurisdictions to audit their jurisdiction and then vice 
versa. At the Bureau we do hire outside contractors to come in 
and conduct those PREA audits, so I think that is a step in the 
right direction.
    But again, Senator, I think the bottom-line answer to your 
question is the PREA audits are just one tool in our toolbox.
    Senator Ossoff. I think we need to understand how this tool 
can be so ineffective that at Dublin, for example--and here is 
the 2017 Dublin audit--it was found that the facility met the 
standard of ``zero tolerance of sexual abuse and sexual 
harassment.'' It says that the facility ``meets the standard.'' 
The warden, the chaplain, others who have been convicted, 
allegedly over a dozen who may be under investigation at this 
time, were, in fact, engaged in sexual abuse.
    Here is what really stands out about this. It cites the 
PREA coordinator as the key source for making that finding. The 
PREA coordinator was sexually abusing inmates.
    I understand the intent of these audits, and you and your 
team believe it is a key tool. It is clearly not working, 
right?
    Ms. Peters. That is correct, Senator. It has not eliminated 
prison rape.
    Senator Ossoff. I think it is not just that it has not 
eliminated prison rape, it is that it is generating false 
negatives at facilities where, as the inspector general said--
and Mr. Horowitz, if I am correct, your comments to the effect 
that if the warden and the chaplain are engaged in widespread 
sexual abuse of inmates, there is no way that is a secret. Mr. 
Horowitz, is that----
    Mr. Horowitz. Yes.
    Senator Ossoff. You have abuse occurring at this facility 
that is so severe and so high level that it must have been 
widely known. In fact, as I said, it eventually spilled out 
into the public. The place was called ``The Rape Club,'' but 
the PREA audit found that it met the standard of zero 
tolerance.
    In Coleman--again, predates your tenure--two days before 
the PREA audit was executed, every female inmate had been 
removed from the facility. Now I am not saying there was or was 
not foul play involved there, but it is true, is it not, 
Director Peters, that interviewing inmates is a core part of 
the process of conducting a PREA audit. Yes?
    Ms. Peters. Yes.
    Senator Ossoff. If every female inmate had been removed 
from the facility 2 days before the PREA audit, those 
interviews could not have been properly conducted, could they 
have?
    Ms. Peters. That is correct.
    Senator Ossoff. Director Peters, this was before your 
tenure. My point is this process is badly, badly broken, and as 
a result the tool that you are going to have to rely on--and I 
know you are also implementing these cultural assessments, and 
I am eager to see how effective they are--to know what is 
happening in your own facilities is not currently functioning 
to give you the visibility that you are going to need. If you 
lack that visibility, with you as the leader of reform, we are 
not going to be able to implement change.
    Let us talk a little bit about OIA processes, the Garrity 
precedent, Inspector General Horowitz, when prosecutions are or 
are not brought, what the consequences of those are. Looking 
into Coleman, multiple BOP employees who eventually admitted, 
in sworn statements, compelled by Bureau of Prisons Office of 
Internal Affairs, admitted, in graphic and explicit detail, to 
sexual abuse of prisoners. All or most of those cases had been 
referred to your office as candidates for criminal prosecution.
    The outcome is that none of them were criminally 
prosecuted, and in fact, many retired with their benefits 
intact. How did that happen?
    Mr. Horowitz. I have looked at those cases and there are 
multiple reasons for it. First and foremost, we need to do, as 
a general matter, and are doing a more effective job at looking 
at these cases when they come back to us. Initially, remember, 
we are essentially in a triage business. We get thousands of 
complaints every year. We have a dozen agents, for example, in 
the Florida region, in our Miami field office, to cover a 
number of prisons throughout the Southeast.
    We are doing triage initially, keeping the ones that look 
like they need independent oversight by us, and we are 
returning the vast majority to the BOP for their internal 
affairs to handle. It is very simply a resource question. There 
are only so many cases a dozen agents, spending half their time 
on BOP work, can take. We are looking for those at the outset.
    BOP then investigates, and they, on occasion, when they 
find things, come back to us and say, ``We have found 
additional evidence.'' It is particularly at that stage that 
many of these cases came back that we probably could have 
done--and most of the people, by the way, are no longer in the 
organization because many of these happened years ago, so I 
have not been able to talk to the actual decisionmakers--but it 
appears, looking at the file, that in most cases we could have 
taken several steps to further investigate those, before 
deciding to send them back to the BOP again.
    It was at that stage that the BOP sought to compel the 
officer, and of course, as has been alluded to, once an 
employee is compelled to speak it means they cannot invoke 
their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and 
anything they say is tainted from a prosecution, which is how 
they ended up not being prosecuted.
    We need to both look at those cases that come to us with a 
more stringent review. We also need to make sure we are well-
coordinated with the Office of Internal Affairs at BOP and 
sharing insights, including what we are now doing with data 
analytics, which is looking for trends at prisons so that we 
cannot look at these anymore as one-offs, but do they reflect a 
broader problem, suggesting that we might have more witnesses 
out there if we go in and talk to inmates.
    Because what we have seen, frankly, at Coleman--and I have 
talked to my agents about this around the country--once we go 
into a prison--and by the way, the three inmates on the first 
panel who said they did not report it, we went to them because 
we had learned about wrongdoing in the prison and reached out 
to them as potential witnesses. My agents tell me this over and 
over again. Once inmates see us on the ground and see action 
being taken, like when we searched the warden's residence in 
connection with Dublin--we searched the warden's home during 
that investigation--we received a substantial number of 
complaints from inmates, several of which we have corroborated. 
But those happened once they saw that action.
    There are a lot of things that need to occur, both on our 
end and on the BOP's end. I will go back to talking about two 
things that would help up front--cameras and search policy, 
contraband penalties. Inmates are being groomed. Contraband is 
a huge problem. If we had cameras--I cannot tell you how many 
cases we have where the absence of video testimony makes it 
extraordinarily difficult.
    One other thing that is important on the accountability 
front and the credit to the deputy attorney general for doing 
this. She has told the U.S. attorneys they need to prosecute 
these cases. Because keep in mind that is the other thing my 
agents are looking at these cases for. If there was a crime but 
no one is going to prosecute it, our investigating it as a 
criminal matter does not make any sense. There needs to be the 
partner on the receiving end, and that has been very helpful.
    Senator Ossoff. You mentioned the proactive monitoring of 
data to include complaint data. Correct to include complaint 
data?
    Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
    Senator Ossoff. My view is that both OIG and OIA need to be 
engaged in that. In fact, we heard from OIA that they are not 
doing that. I will enter into the record, without objection, 
some charts\1\ that we produced that show that at several of 
these key, most notorious facilities, there was a data 
signature of increased complaints in the years during which the 
misconduct was occurring but before it broke into the public 
domain and before there was significant official action.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ The charts referenced by Senator Ossoff appears in the Appendix 
on page 212.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Director Peters, will you commit to ensuring that OIA is 
proactively monitoring sexual assault complaint data at the 
facility level to get ahead of any possible major crises at a 
facility?
    Ms. Peters. Yes, Senator. The inspector general and I just 
met a couple of weeks ago and he talked about this notion of 
data analytics, and I went back and talked to my team. We 
certainly want to be looking at the exact same data that the 
inspector general is looking at so that we see that information 
parallel to him looking at it. Our Office of Internal Affairs 
is looking forward to that collaboration and ensuring that we 
are monitoring the same sets of data.
    Mr. Horowitz. Keep in mind, most of the data that we 
receive are the referrals we get from the BOP. The ones we 
cannot share with the BOP are the whistleblower complaints, the 
inmates that come straight to us that need confidentiality. So 
short of that data, we should have the same data.
    Senator Ossoff. I think proactively monitoring that data is 
going to be essential, and Inspector General Horowitz, you 
noted that in those Coleman cases, at least in several of the, 
OIA brought them back.
    Mr. Horowitz. Correct.
    Senator Ossoff. But still no prosecution was brought, and 
as a result, those folks faced no criminal penalties for pretty 
egregious acts. Clearly it sounds that you engaged in and 
change is necessary. I understand you both face resource 
constraints, but this is a crisis that requires immediate 
action.
    We are going to close now. Just a couple of final thoughts 
for you.
    Director Peters, I have been genuinely encouraged by the 
tone of your tenure thus far, by the ambitious reform 
objectives that you set out in public, and when we have met in 
private and during these public engagements I have encouraged 
you to make good on those intentions and those promises. I want 
to encourage you again to embrace the possibility that you can 
turn this agency around with everything that you have. I think 
you should expect that so long as I have the ability, I will be 
calling you back to the Senate to ask what progress you have 
made.
    The one thing that concerned me from today's discussion is 
that your admirable plans for reform, which I hope you 
implement with speed and strength, need to be informed by a 
fulsome understanding of what has gone wrong in the past. When 
we investigated Atlanta, what we heard from your predecessor 
was that he was blind, in my view willfully blind, but blind to 
what was happening at the regional level and at the facility 
level, and the regional director did not know what was 
happening at the facility level.
    You will be held accountable for knowing, and I believe you 
have an opportunity to establish a legacy as a reformer who 
saves lives and protects vulnerable people from sexual assault, 
one of the most heinous things that can happen to any human 
being. This has to stop. You have the power to stop it.
    I also hope that you will be responsive to the U.S. 
Congress, and I want to note that we are still awaiting answers 
to specific questions regarding U.S. Penitentiary Atlanta that 
were submitted following that July 26th hearing. You need to 
set the tone within your organization and working with DOJ's 
Office of Legislative Affairs that responsiveness to the Senate 
is essential, because it is not an encouraging sign when we are 
stymied in our efforts to conduct oversight.
    Thank you for your commitment to change, and please make 
good on it. Please cooperate fully with our efforts to support 
reform. We should be working together to make these changes.
    This will be the final hearing for the Permanent 
Subcommittee on Investigations this Congress. I believe that 
the work that we have done investigating conditions of 
incarceration and detention in the United States has been among 
the most substantive and focused effort in the history of the 
U.S. Congress. We have investigated corruption and misconduct 
at Bureau of Prisons facilities. We have investigated the 
medical mistreatment in DHS custody. We have investigated 
failures to implement the Death In Custody Reporting Act. We 
are now continuing to investigate the sexual abuse of women in 
Federal custody.
    This work will continue. Accountability will continue. Both 
of you have key roles to play in making sure that when I close 
this hearing, that is not the end of this. It is the turning 
point that you referenced in your opening remarks, Director 
Peters.
    Thank you both for your testimony, and the hearing is 
adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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