MI county prosecutor will not prosecute cases when guards rape prisoners

Outrage of the day.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060804/METRO/608040358

Wayne won't take prison rape cases

Prosecutor testifies county lacks resources to prosecute female inmates' complaints.

Norman Sinclair / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- A presidential commission investigating prison rape around the country heard one of its major complaints confirmed Thursday as Wayne County Prosecutor Kym L. Worthy testified that her office refuses to prosecute prison sex abuse cases.

Worthy told the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, chaired by federal district Judge Reggie B. Walton of Washington, D.C., that because of budget restraints, her office cannot afford to handle such cases.

She told commissioners at the meeting at U.S. District Court in downtown Detroit that as recently as last month, she declined to take the cases of three women allegedly abused by prison staff that were referred to her by the Attorney General's Office.

"We are in a budgetary crisis that won't allow us to undertake state prison cases," Worthy said. "We are down 34 positions and facing a 5 percent budget cut. We have 175 assistant prosecutors and most offices this size around the county have double or triple that number. We have 12 investigators (compared) to 20 to 100 in counties this big."

Rusty Hills, spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, called Worthy's comments "outrageous."

"All other prosecutors in the state with prisons in their county prosecute these cases," said Hills. "Wayne County is the only one refusing to do so. Every prosecutor has budget problems."

Hills said because of Worthy's stance, his office has asked for the cases she was not acting upon. He said her office dumped 23 cases on the attorney general and the three they asked her to take were ones in which his office had conflicts of interest because the attorney general is already defending the Corrections employees involved.

Hills said his office has approached the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan to consider appointing a special prosecutor .

Commissioner Jamie Fellner, director of the United States Program of Human Rights Watch, said she had a hard time understanding how any group of county residents, including prisoners, could be removed from seeking justice in cases of rape and assault.

"You have chosen to cut off the most politically powerless people in society," Fellner said.

The plight of female inmates facing sexual abuse by male staff in Michigan's women's prisons was detailed in May 2005 in a three-part series in The Detroit News.

On Thursday, Corrections Director Patricia Caruso testified that the most controversial change she adopted in the wake of that series was removing all male officers from female prison living quarters. She said since the move was completed in December, the number of complaints by female inmates had dropped considerably.

Walton said he hopes the commission's recommendations for changes that will go to the president and Congress will have a profound impact on the national problem.

You can reach Norman Sinclair at (313) 222-2034 or nsinclair@detnews.com.