Female Cook County public defenders sued over the hostile work environment created by the men they are charged to defend.
Marshall Project: Hold my beer.
But the worst abuse came from inmates, who would make sexual remarks and masturbate at her as she did rounds in their housing areas. [Paula] Purdy says she reported the behavior to her bosses, but there were few consequences. “I would get emotional at work several times a day,” she said.
Over the years, the harassment by male prisoners grew more intense, and Purdy says she became reluctant to do everyday things like grocery shop, afraid she’d encounter one of the men on the outside. As a single mother, she felt trapped in her job. “It’s not like you can up and quit,” she said. Eventually, she decided she’d had enough. In 2015, she retired early at age 55, even though it meant taking a reduced pension.
She felt “trapped”? Paula Purdy was the screw, having chosen a career as a prison guard. And the prisoners didn’t behave to her liking?
Purdy is one of 15 plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed in 2015 by female officers at the Denver jail. The women claim that they suffered near-daily sexual harassment from inmates, including rape threats, which the city did not stop or mitigate. They are among scores of female corrections workers across the country in recent years who have made similar claims against their employers.
Can you imagine the horror of experiencing inappropriate, lewd, threatening language? And again with the masturbation. What is with these male prisoners who can’t behave like gentlemen in the presence of a lady?
It’s not enough that these men are sentenced to prison, some to death on the slow boat, never to see their children, to enjoy a decent meal, to breathe free air. Why must it always be about the men when there are women who choose to seek employment as prison guards and are entitled to a work environment that doesn’t subject them to sexual harassment by these caged animals who have no respect for womanhood?
But female officers say aggressive sexual behavior from inmates often contributes to a hostile work environment. Many are fighting back with lawsuits that place the blame not on the men perpetrating the abuse, but on the prison managers that they say enable it. Other female guards say they don’t blame prison administrators. “I believe it’s offender driven,” said Katy Cathcart, who spent seven years working in the maximum security Colorado State Penitentiary and said she experienced countless incidents of sexual harassment from inmates. “If I wrote an incident report every time, I would literally write hundreds a day.”
Clearly, this problem demands redress. There is a compelling need to incarcerate a better class of prisoner who will be more respectful, behave more appropriately, toward female prison guards. After all, isn’t the entire point of prison to give them a job that was once reserved for men under a flagrantly sexist regime, but is now open to all genders? And aren’t women entitled to a work environment free of hostility and harassment?
Thanks for clearing that up, Marshall Project. This was a story that needed to be told.
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I remember when prison were sued and then forced to hire women as guards. The behavior of the inmates was one of the reasons prisons claimed should exempt them from equal opportunity in hiring women.
Such arguments seem almost quaint these days.
If you treat people like animals then they behave like animals. It is unlikely that all of the offending offenders behaved like this while they were on the outside. The upshot to the litigation, is that it might make legislatures and state corrections boards/agencies reconsider how offenders should be housed and treated.
Well, that’s one possibility.
At least they didn’t have to apply for work in Hollywood.
That’s why it’s taken so long for Purdy to become a star.
This is unbelievable. I have been to prison 4-5 times and it is as bad as this article says it is. That’s why I don’t commit crimes and don’t represent many prisoners. This is akin to the guy who shovels shit for a living and files an OSHA complaint about the flies. Last time I checked the prison guards were allowed to leave at the end of their shift. No one forces anyone to be work there.
Denver. A consolidated City/County government. So, I don’t think this is a prison, but essentially a county jail, holding prisoners on misdemeanor sentences, and pretrial detainees on serious state charges who couldn’t make bond. Some of them may be future lifers, but not lifers yet. Still, a great many of those awaiting trial on state felony raps likely have no fear of anything a City/County government or its jail can do to them.
They have opened Pandora’s box. Now every employee who works in shitty conditions is going to start calling it a hostile work environment. This will only accelerate the trend to replace humans with automation.
Well, Pandora will probably slap them with a lawsuit for that. What in the Hell were they thinking?
I realize I’m an old fart/dinosaur. Although, I’ve made some effort to change with the times. However, many of the current PC requirements just defy common sense. (Which, apparently, is not as common as it used to be).
The article you link to, above, has a link embedded in the words “pad-locked garments” (17th paragraph down) that goes to an interesting, related article: “In New York, Padlocked Jumpsuits for Prison ‘Exposers'”. I wonder if it’s the same, or a variant of the ‘groin shield’ jumpsuits McLeod makes reference to in your “Toxic Environment of a Nasty Job” post?
Unfortunately, we have increasingly become a society of snowflakes. Whatever happened to President Harry S. Truman’s notion of “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”?
While no one should have to put up with such obscene behaviors, especially on a regular basis, the male C.O.s/Attendants/Nurses’-aids usually just grimace and get on with the job at hand. As best I can tell, none of the males in the aforementioned positions have joined existing suits or independently filed suit.
Regardless, if the women want to be treated equal to the guys, and want to do unpleasant, traditionally male jobs, then they need to just suck-it-up! … Uh… in the present climate, that may have been a poor choice of words… Let me rephrase…
Thank you for sharing your feelings.
It takes a special kind of chutzpah to lock somebody up, take away their privacy, strip search them, and look at them 24/7, and then complain they’re forcing you to watch them masturbate.
It takes a special kind of chutzpah for Marshall Project to make the female screws the victims.
Maybe we should make masturbating in front of a female guard illegal?
Only female guards? That’s so sexist.
What can I say? I was born in the 50’s.
And isn’t it ageist to criticize me for it?
You were born? So privileged.