Lovisa Stannow

The practice of strip searching all jail inmates, just because they are detainees, is a violation of basic human rights and unnecessary. It is also a recipe for sexual abuse. Sadly, earlier this month, five U.S. Supreme Court justices, a bare majority, found that policies that require strip searches of...

Why the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's new standards will not end the crisis of sexual abuse in immigration detention

Sexual violence in detention is a national crisis in the U.S. The Department of Justice (DOJ) estimates that at least 216,600 men, women, and children are sexually abused in...

Imagine if a simple note could save a life. If it could, would you send one?

A few years ago, Scott was a nonviolent, first-time inmate in a Colorado prison. A white supremacist gang called the "2-11 Crew," which had more than 1,000 members in prisons throughout the state,...

Today, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released a new report on the epidemic proportions
of sexual abuse in U.S. detention. At least 88,500 prison and jail inmates were abused in a single year, according to the BJS, mostly by corrections officers. Some were victimized once, others...

"Rape, which no judge has ever declared a fit penalty for a crime, is inflicted daily on prisoners whose sole offense may have been their inability to make bail."

So wrote Stephen "Donny" Donaldson, former President of Just Detention International (JDI) in a New York Times op-ed in...

Today, June 23, Attorney General Eric Holder missed a critical opportunity to stop the sexual abuse of ten of thousands of Americans. He did so by failing to meet the deadline for enacting the first-ever national standards addressing prisoner rape.

These vitally important measures were mandated by...

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and one place we need to be especially aware of sexual assault is behind bars.

Every year, more than 100,000 men, women and children are victimized while behind bars, usually by corrections officials whose very job it is to keep them safe....

In an important step toward implementing the U.S. Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), the Department of Justice is now soliciting public comments on the recommended Standards for the Prevention, Detection, Response, and Monitoring of Sexual Abuse in Detention. Developed by a bipartisan commission created under PREA,...

A government study released today reveals that an appalling number of youth are raped while in detention - more often than not at the hands of the very officials who are sworn to keep them safe.

According to this unique national survey of detained youth,...

It has been twenty-five years since Congress passed the Victims of Crime Act. This important legislation has done a lot of good. But it could do more good with one simple change.

The Victims of Crime Act funds essential mental health and medical services to victims of sexual...