Specific charges being investigated against the 2 women's prisons in Michigan: there are dripping ceilings, rats and mice in the food, bugs everywhere. Women are packed in like sardines. 41 women share 2 shower heads, 5 sinks and 2 toilets in a tiny bathroom.
Women report being cornered by guards who expose themselves or rub against them in mock sexual intercourse in their cells, in the kitchen and in the laundry room. Guards routinely conduct "unduly intrusive" pat-down searches, fondling inmates' breasts, buttocks and genitals "in ways not justified by legitimate security needs." Inmates with large breasts or those perceived as weak are often harassed. Guards and janitors routinely watch inmates undress in cells, showers and toilets. In routine drug tests, inmates are forced to strip and urinate into a cup while an officer watches inches from the inmate's crotch.
Pamela Disbrow, 51, former inmate who served 9 years before the Michigan Supreme Court reversed her conviction in Feb. 1995, said she lost most of her hearing in one ear due to lack of treatment while at Crane. Disbrow also told of the time she witnessed the death of an inmate at Huron Valley Women's facility (now a men's mental institution.) where she saw another woman suffer an asthma attack in front of guards, who waited several minutes and then slowly pushed the unconscious woman out of the prison yard in a wheelchair. Prison officials retaliated against Disbrow for witnessing the scene. "They took away my thyroid pills and they took away my asthma medications." She said one doctor told her, "If I wanted to be free of pain, he'd cut off my legs."
One of the advocates for the women inside is Deborah LaBelle, who is with the Natl Lawyers Guild in Detroit. She states that some of the charges of sexual assaults on women have been turned over to the fbi for investigation recently, but no further charges have been filed as of August 1995.
The state of Michigan has a republican governor who refuses to correct the horrific conditions in the women's prisons and accuses the democrat- led federal justice dept of "picking on Michigan." However, the sexual assaults by guards have become so flagrant that Michigan state police have been forced to file charges.
The director of Michigan dept of corrections, a Kevin McGinnis, also a republican, is complaining that the feds based their findings "solely on interviews with convicted felons, with little or no independent verification." This director also states that inspections by regular agencies are welcome, but that they "vigorously oppose an intrusive parade of federal investigators into their women's prisons, demanding an array of records and thousands of hours of prison staff time."