A lieutenant with the Department of Corrections is due to retire in a few months. But before he does, he is hoping for a last-minute transfer from Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, which has been plagued by abuse in recent years.
His reasoning? He fears a prisoner will falsely accuse him of sexual misconduct, triggering an investigation that could destroy his career and keep him from collecting the pension he has worked years to earn.
The officer’s concerns are documented in an April report from a federal prison monitor overseeing Edna Mahan after the U.S. Department of Justice in 2020 found rampant sexual abuse of inmates by corrections officers.
Now, as leaders work to rid the state’s only women’s prison of abuse, monitor Jane Parnell said the facility must address false sexual abuse or harassment allegations, which she charged inmates have used to threaten and retaliate against officers they don’t like.
Parnell said prisoners are “weaponizing” the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), a federal law protecting inmates from sexual abuse.
She called it one of the “most prevalent and vociferous” messages she heard during interviews with both staff and inmates.
“Some prisoners have literally been known to say to staff and or other prisoners, ‘I’m going to PREA you’, meaning they are going to file a false PREA complaint on that person,” Parnell wrote in her report.
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