Class Action Claims Madison County, Alabama Maintains Detention Facility ‘Ripe’ for Sexual Abuse

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Out of Alabama comes a proposed class action filed by a woman who claims she was raped and sexually assaulted by a correctional officer while detained at the Madison County Detention Center (MCDC) in Huntsville. According to the lawsuit, which names as defendants the correctional officer; Madison County, Alabama; Madison County Sheriff’s Office (MSCO); and the county’s sheriff, the detention facility’s design and policies put female inmates in danger of abuse by allowing unsupervised contact with male guards in the prison’s infirmary.

The case points out that the MCDC has only one medical facility, known as the infirmary, where both male and female inmates are treated. In the infirmary, the suit goes on, a male guard may discipline a female inmate by segregating her in a cell unmonitored by cameras, a situation the complaint argues is “ripe for the abuse of vulnerable female inmates.”

“It is, in other words, the only place where a sexual predator can, with no fear of being observed, impose his will on a female inmate,” the lawsuit states.

As for the plaintiff, the case says that while being treated at the infirmary for a severe skin infection, the woman was disciplined “for false reasons” and isolated in one of the unmonitored infirmary cells. That night, the suit continues, the male guard who issued the “disciplinary” entered the plaintiff’s cell and allegedly sexually assaulted and raped her. He has, thus far, only been charged with custodial sexual misconduct, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit argues that the Madison County defendants failed to maintain “adequately safe facilities” for female inmates, which put them at risk of sexual abuse.

“The abusive conduct alleged above was done intentionally and with complete disregard for the rights secured to Plaintiff under the Constitution and laws of the United States and the State of Alabama,” the complaint reads. “Defendants Madison County, Alabama and MCSO knew or should have known of the potential for this unlawful conduct, and through their deliberate indifference, authorized and/or ratified the unlawful conduct.”