State lawmakers ‘disturbed’ by findings that the Department of Corrections failed to appropriately prevent and investigate sexual assault

State lawmakers on both sides of the aisle want answers from the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) about how it handles sexual assault following an audit from the state comptroller’s office. That audit discovered the department had violated state policy and the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

Here are a few of the findings the comptroller’s office presented at the Capitol during a hearing this week:

• 15 investigations were closed before rape kit results came back.
• Five rape kits weren’t sent for testing.
• Management did not record disciplinary action for 28 incarcerated offenders and four staff offenders.
• Investigative case files contained numerous errors.
• Five substantiated rape allegations were missing from the record.

Additionally, PREA requires prisons to screen inmates and identify known or potential sexual offenders and known or potential victims. That screening is used to avoid housing potential offenders and victims together.

State policy requires annual screenings. However, the audit found that TDOC did not ensure facilities performed the required PREA screenings of 1,011 incarcerated people from August 1, 2019 to July 31, 3023. And TDOC and CoreCivic housed 34 incompatible offenders and victims in the same cells.

At this week’s hearing, TDOC’s Deputy Commissioner, Linda Thomas, acknowledged the concerns raised by the audit and said that the department has a “ways to go” when it came to handling rape kits correctly. But, she also said the real problem could be that that department’s policies are too strict.

“We’re reevaluating our policies to make sure that we’re not going above and beyond what the standards say, so that we can meet the requirements of the standards,” she said.

Nevertheless, several lawmakers at the hearing said were disturbed by these findings — especially because several of them had already been identified as problems in the state comptroller’s 2020 audit.

Sen. Kerry Roberts (R-Springfield) emphasized that these problems should not be repeated in the next audit, adding that when he spoke to the families of incarcerated people, their greatest fear was that a loved one would be sexually assaulted in prison.

“I truly understand that there are some people in prison because they did bad things. And there is a group of the population that probably doesn’t care what happens to them because they sort of looks at it like ‘they get what they deserve,'” he said, “But I don’t think as a state that’s the way we feel or the way we operate.”

The audit found violations at facilities run by the state and by CoreCivic, a private contractor that has been the repeated subject of wrongful death lawsuits and abuse allegations. Since 2020, CoreCivic has paid the state a total of $20 million in damages for failing to meet their contract requirements, usually due to staffing shortfalls.

After learning about those damages, Democratic Representative John Ray Clemmons asked if ending CoreCivic’s contract was “even a consideration” for the Tennessee Department of Corrections.

“No, not at the moment,” responded TDOC Commissioner Frank Strada, “They’re helping us manage a population. We have a need for CoreCivic. We have a need for those beds.”

And TDOC wants more funding for CoreCivic. Just last month, the department asked for a $7 million increase for the private contractor’s services.