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U.S. Senate investigates sexual abuse of prison inmates

Female inmates were sexually abused in at least two-thirds of U.S. federal prisons over the last decade according to a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigation.

After an eight-month investigation by the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), subcommittee Chairman Senator Jon Ossoff says the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) failed to implement the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA,) which mandates a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual assault for all U.S. correctional facilities.

Senate officials also found that senior officials were sexually abusing inmates in at least one federal prison.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons added 40 positions to their Office of Internal Affairs to investigate 8,000 unreviewed cases, including several hundred sexual abuse allegations.