against the state for failing to protect them from sexual violence they say they experienced while in prison.
The new law is part of a wave of reforms across the country that expands the statute of limitations on sexual offenses. This year,and the federal government passed legislation that eliminates or lengthens the statute of limitations of existing criminal and civil laws, giving victims more time to come forward with claims against alleged abusers.
The Adult Survivor Act in New York makes way for victims to specifically file claims about sexual assault in state correctional facilities, which carry a long history of abuse. The pending cases allege that since the 1970s, New York state had been made aware, through lawsuits andreports, that incarcerated women were being sexually assaulted by prison staffers but did nothing to stop it.
At a press conference about the claims on Nov. 16 in Lower Manhattan, three Black women gave gut-wrenching testimonies about being repeatedly raped by prison guards during their sentences. One of the women said that while serving a sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York, she was raped by a guard for six years. She suffered an ectopic pregnancy that caused her fallopian tube to rupture, ending her chances to ever have children.
In an email to Capital B on Nov. 21, Thomas Mailey, a spokesman for New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, said “Individuals who violate Department rules are disciplined by the Department and when there is evidence that a crime was committed, and DOCCS refers those cases for criminal prosecution to the fullest extent permitted by law.”
It takes a twisted cookie to want to be a prison guard to begin with
We’re gonna fix the island so people are treated like human beings