House Introduces Key Bill to Help Incarcerated Survivors of Sexual Abuse

Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., September 26, 2024 — Today Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA), Congressman Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), and Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) introduced vital legislation to restore dignity to incarcerated people who have been sexually abused. The Sexual Abuse Services in Detention Act (SASIDA, H.R. 9835) would dramatically scale up emotional support services for survivors behind bars. The bipartisan bill includes provisions to fund and train community rape crisis centers to work in detention settings, enabling providers to reach a group of people who have long suffered in silence.

“SASIDA will help remedy the devastating lack of emotional support services for people in detention who have been sexually abused,” said Linda McFarlane, Executive Director of Just Detention International. “With the introduction of SASIDA and the leadership of its sponsors, Representatives Sydney Kalmager-Dove, Kelly Armstrong, and Hank Johnson, we have a prime opportunity to ensure that survivors of sexual abuse get the help they deserve.”

SASIDA would create a federal grants program to fund local rape crisis centers’ work inside detention facilities. The grants program would cover a range of services that are currently available in the broader community but rarely behind bars, including telephone hotlines. The bill would also fund training for corrections staff on best practices for providing supportive care to the people in their custody. In addition, SASIDA would establish a national resource center to support both corrections professionals and rape crisis centers in their work to provide emotional support services to survivors of sexual abuse in detention.

SASIDA (S. 1422) was introduced in the Senate earlier this Congress by Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Brian Schatz (D-HI).

“Nationwide, there is a robust network of rape crisis centers providing lifesaving care to their communities. But most centers do not have the resources or training to serve the incarcerated people who are part of those same communities,” said McFarlane. “With SASIDA in place, rape crisis centers finally will be able reach survivors behind bars, working hand-in-hand with corrections staff to bring healing to those who need it.”

Just Detention International is joined by more than 50 organizations in endorsing SASIDA, among them the ACLU, FAMM, National Commission on Correctional Health Care, Right on Crime, and Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. In addition, a coalition of organizations signed a letter to Congressional leaders urging them to push forward SASIDA’s passage.

SASIDA’s introduction comes at a moment of increased attention to the rampant sexual abuse behind bars. Several high-profile cases of staff sexual abuse, including at the federal prison in Dublin, California, have underscored the need for more robust protections for incarcerated people and better access to confidential rape crisis services.

Yesterday the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism held Congress’s first hearing that focused on sexual abuse in prisons and youth detention systems since the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 was enacted. At the hearing, which was chaired by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), Just Detention International’s National Advocacy Director Julie Abbate and other expert witnesses offered recommendations to help fulfill PREA’s goal of ending sexual abuse behind bars, including the swift passage of SASIDA.

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Just Detention International is a health and human rights organization that seeks to end sexual abuse in all forms of detention.