The horror of life behind bars and police-prison guard brutality

The horror of life behind bars and police-prison guard brutality

Police or prison guard abuse and brutality of prisoners is rampant

By Lynda Carson - July 7, 2026

As our country celebrates the 250th anniversary of America, the horror of life behind bars, police brutality, and prison guard abuse-brutality is beyond the pale in our country. Making matters worse, on the campaign trail the convicted felon President Donald J. Trump stated that it’s alright with him if the cops use more violence.

For those who can recall, reportedly it was on May 25, 1999, that “Police Officer Justin Volpe, 27, pleaded guilty to six charges, including conspiring to deprive Abner Louima of his civil rights by beating him in a police car and ramming a wooden broom handle 13-15cm into his rectum. I sodomised him with a stick," Volpe told a Brooklyn federal court yesterday, taking deep breaths and wiping tears from his eyes as protesters chanted outside.”

On-going brutality happening from Abner Louima to George Floyd, brutal cops and prison guards continue to kill and abuse those who are in their custody. Recently, it was reported in Government Executive, “ More than 3-in-4 allegations of sexual assault against federal prison staff are going unresolved.”

A few headlines below may help to reveal how extreme the horror’s of life are for those behind bars, and in police custody.

New York Post, Women’s prison officer learns fate for role in ‘rape club’ in biggest sex abuse scandal in US history.

San Francisco Chronicle, Leaked videos show California prison guards pepper-sprayed incarcerated women who alleged sexual misconduct.

Wisconsin Examiner, Oshkosh prison guard convicted of sexual assault of incarcerated man.

KADN News 15, Basile ICE facility guard sentenced to federal prison for sexual abuse of detainee.

The Advocate, Four Baton Rouge jail guards charged for allegedly beating inmates in areas without cameras.

Times Union, Court revives sex assault claim in Elmira prison guard abuse case.

Click2Houston, Two former Hospital Galveston correctional officers arrested for alleged sexual misconduct with female inmates.

Wisconsin Law Journal, Prison guard sentenced for sexually assaulting inmate.

WKYT, Two Kentucky prison guards fired, one suspended after inmate alleges assault.

KRON4, Ex-East Bay prison guard sentenced to prison.

Spectrum News, ‘I thought I was going to die’: Former state prison inmates allege abuse, star­vation where cameras don’t see.

Government Executive, More than 3-in-4 allegations of sexual assault against federal prison staff are going unresolved.

Syracuse.com, Prosecutor in NY prison deaths wants to make it easier to convict guards who watch and do nothing.

WHYY, Former Philadelphia prison guard pleads guilty to civil rights violations, falsifying records.

KTVU, Final FCI Dublin officer sentenced in biggest sex abuse scandal at U.S. prison.

AOL.com, Badge To Cell: Former Michigan Prison Guard Gets Up To 15 Years For Inmate Abuse.

OregonLive.com, State pays $225K to woman who alleged prison guard coerced sexual acts.

San Francisco Chronicle, Ex-FCI Dublin jail guard sentenced to 52 months for sexual abuse of female inmate.

The Detroit News, Former corrections officer pleads guilty to sexually abusing inmate.

Click2Houston, ‘We should not be assaulted’: High-profile prisoner alleges sexual assault by prison guards at Hospital Galveston.

NBC New York, Ex-guard accused of stomping inmate's head goes on trial in fatal beating at NY prison.

Audacy, Ex-federal prison guard in Philadelphia sentenced for sexually abusing inmate.

Syracuse.com, Guard gets maximum sentence in fatal beating of inmate in state prison in Oneida County.

News 9, Lexington correctional officer arrested on sexual assault charges, ODOC says.

Foster's Daily Democrat, Ex-Strafford County jail guard to plead guilty to lesser charges.

Michigan Advance, Former corrections officer at Michigan women’s prison pleads guilty to criminal sexual conduct.

bet.com, Kentucky Prison Guards Accused of Framing Inmates, Racist Abuse.

Alabama Political Reporter, Protestors call for firing of killer corrections officer.

PIX11, NYC correctional officer accused of sexual abuse after DNA found on inmate’s jumpsuit.

PhillyVoice, Former correctional officer at federal prison in Philly gets 30-year sentence for sexual assault of inmate.

Syracuse.com, Former NY guard who tried to cover up fatal beating of inmate faces new sex abuse charges.

Syracuse.com, Two former New York prison guards plead guilty in fatal beating and cover-up.

New York Daily News, Brooklyn MDC correction officer arrested for sexually abusing inmate in chaplain’s office.

Corrections1, Ex-correctional officer gets 52 months in prison in FCI Dublin abuse case.

KING5.com, Washington corrections officer arrested for allegedly having explicit videos of kids on his phone.

KOIN.com, Former federal corrections officer sentenced to 12 years for child sex abuse.

Queens Daily Eagle, Former Rikers officer sentenced to two years in prison for sex abuse.

Pleasanton Weekly, Another officer sentenced for sexual abuse of inmate at infamous Dublin prison.

KNOE, Former managers of Catahoula Parish Correctional indicted for ‘abusing handcuffed prisoners’.

Lexington Herald Leader, Two KY prison guards fired after inmate claims his head was rammed into wall.

WKTV, Herkimer County Supreme Court Indicts Former Corrections Officer on Sex Abuse Charges.

Mountain Top Media, Former guard who revealed ‘unofficial policy’ of abuse at prison sentenced to four years.

WGN-TV, DuPage County corrections officer charged with disseminating child sexual abuse material, subsequently fired.

The Guardian, Women in California prison accuse staff cook of rape and urge criminal charges.

The Paintsville Herald, Ex-prison guard sentenced to four years in inmate assault case.

prismreports.org, A New York women’s prison with a history of violence hired a high-ranking official known for abuse.

Lawsuit Information Center, Chowchilla Women’s Prison Sex Abuse Lawsuit.

Greater Long Island, Suffolk jail guard used crypto to buy child sexual abuse material, DA says.

WEEK | 25 News Now, Correctional officer released before trial in Fairbury sexual assault case.

azcentral.com and The Arizona Republic, Arizona inmates claim abuse, excessive force in new prison lawsuit.

The New York Times, Restrained, Beaten, Asphyxiated: New York Prison Guards’ Brutality Grows.

FOX19 | Cincinnati, Former inmate sues 26 jail officials over alleged 2-month pattern of abuse.

The Guardian, Death on the inside: as a prison officer, I saw how the system perpetuates violence.

Los Angeles Times, L.A. County women’s jail inmates allege sexual abuse by guards: ‘We’re all broken’.

InvestigateWest, The Idaho prison guard who preyed on women — and the system that hid his ‘predatory’ conduct.

NBC10 Philadelphia, Former Philly prison guard pleads to sexual abuse charges in attack on inmate.

CT Mirror, Report: Women at York Correctional were abused by officers.

The Guardian, Ex-New York prison guard found guilty of murder in beating death of prisoner.

The Marshall Project, In New York Prisons, Guards Who Brutalize Prisoners Rarely Get Fired.


More than 3-in-4 allegations of sexual assault against federal prison staff are going unresolved.

That’s right. No matter what the horrific headlines above may try to reveal, more than 3-in-4 allegations of sexual assault against federal prison staff are going unresolved.

Reportedly, as recent as May 6, 2026, in an article with Government Executive, in part it says, “Allegations of sexual abuse against staff at federal prisons are overwhelmingly left unresolved after the Bureau of Prisons is unable to draw a conclusion on whether such incidents occurred, according to a new report that found the federal Bureau of Prisons is frequently ill-equipped to handle those investigations.
 
Allegations of rape and sexual misconduct against federal corrections officers by inmates have spiked in recent years, the Government Accountability Office found in its review of enforcement of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), and the bureau is in many ways failing to implement the law in the way Congress intended. 

From 2014 through 2022, federal inmates logged nearly 4,000 complaints of sexual abuse against prison staff. Just 9% of those were substantiated by BOP, though 77% saw investigations end inconclusively. The agency proved the incidents did not occur in just six cases, or about one-tenth of 1%.
 
A similar trend emerged from sexual abuse allegedly committed by incarcerated individuals, with 81% of those cases reaching inconclusive findings.
 
GAO separately found federal prison guards faced around 3,000 allegations of sexual abuse from 2020 through 2024, a significant uptick in incident rate from prior years. From 2014 through 2022, BOP averaged 433 allegations against its staff per year. In 2023 and 2024, that spiked to 857 per year.”

Prisoners are being abused so bad, in California many inmates are risking their lives over and over again as firefighters who barely earn $1 dollar per hour. Reportedly in the LA Times on January 9, 2025, “From 2020 to 2024, inmate firefighters spent 1,382,117 hours fighting fires for $1 per hour, according to a bill analysis by legislative staff.”

UNICOR Was Linked To The “Rape Club” at Dublin’s FCI Federal Women’s Prison.

During March of 2024, I wrote an article about inmates being sexually abused at Dublin’s FCI federal women’s prison, and prison guard Nakie Nunley. In part it said, “Nunley was employed as a correctional officer at FCI Dublin where he supervised prisoners who worked in UNICOR, a trade name for the federal prison industries. All of Nunley’s victims worked at the UNICOR call center at the time of his abuse. According to his plea agreement, Nunley admits that between March 2020 and November 2021, he engaged in sexual acts with two prisoners, including having oral and vaginal sex with one victim and digitally penetrating another victim on multiple occasions. He also admitted that he engaged in illegal sexual contacts with three other prisoners and that he lied to federal investigators about sexually abusing his victims and about sending one of his victims sexually explicit notes.

In addition to the five victims he is charged with abusing in the Information, Nunley also admitted in his plea agreement that he sexually abused two other prisoners who worked at UNICOR. Nunley admitted that he digitally penetrated one victim’s vagina and caused her to touch his penis under his pants, resulting in him ejaculating in her hand. Nunley admitted that he caused another victim to perform oral sex on him.

Nunley also admitted that he engaged in other inappropriate behavior. For example, Nunley agreed that he wrote sexual notes to one of his victims and made sexual comments to multiple victims. Moreover, when one of his victims approached him about his conduct towards another victim, Nunley threatened her by raising with her the potential that she could be transferred to another facility and that she could lose her job. Similarly, Nunley admitted that he told another victim that if she wanted to keep her job at UNICOR, she needed to pull down her underwear and bend over. When she complied, Nunley slapped her buttocks several times.”

2007 Interview I Did Of Activist Attorney Tony Serra.

In an April 3, 2007 article I wrote, called “Activist Attorney Sues Over Slave Labor Practices,” in part it says, “In late March, Tony Serra — San Francisco’s well known and respected criminal defense attorney — filed suit against the federal government over slave labor practices. Just out of California’s Lompoc prison after serving 10 months for his years-long tax boycott, the celebrated attorney filed suit in an attempt to force the federal government to pay its prisoners a fair wage compensation for the work being done by prison inmates.

At the least, Serra believes that inmates should earn minimum wage for the work they do in prison — and that unions should be allowed to organize and represent the inmates for collective bargaining to negotiate better wages and conditions for workers.

“It’s a class action lawsuit,” says Serra. “I’m a member (plaintiff) of the class, and it was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. We believe that Lompoc’s pay scale is in violation of the Fifth and Thirteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, and the United Nations covenants on political, civil and prisoner rights.

“Prisoners have no rights in America,” said Serra. “They don’t care about the prisoners in this country, and the prisons are profiting from the slave-like conditions being forced upon the inmates. Lompoc has a dairy and meat industry, including a cable factory which is a supplier for the navy and armed forces industry.

“Lompoc generated a lot of money last year,” he said, “little of which was returned to the inmates as compensation for the work that they do. The federal prison workforce generates around $65 million per year in net profits, and I received 19 cents an hour when working at Lompoc, while the other prisoners were only earning anywhere from 5 cents to $1.65 an hour for their labor. These are slave wages, and often the inmates come back from work covered in filth and are worn out at the end of the day.”

Serra and the 300 to 500 other plaintiffs involved in the class action lawsuit, are being represented by attorneys Stephen Perelson of Mill Valley, and John Murcko and Bill Simpich, of Oakland.”

Lynda Carson may be reached at newzland2 [at] gmail.com

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