Jail staff blamed ‘cute’ female officers for ongoing sexual harassment, lawsuit says

Jail supervisors didn’t take female corrections officers seriously when they complained of sexual harassment perpetuated by inmates, according to a federal lawsuit.

Instead, supervising officers said the women should put on their “big girl pants” and deal with inmates exposing themselves and masturbating at them, making sexual threats and degrading comments at Mobile County Metro Jail in Alabama, the lawsuit says.

The supervisors are accused of blaming female officers who raised concerns about the harassment for “looking cute,” and telling them “if you stopped wearing perfume and tight uniforms, and stopped getting your hair done the inmates would stop masturbating at you,” according to an amended complaint

In the case’s latest development, the Justice Department said it has secured a lawsuit settlement agreement with Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch to resolve the accusations that the sheriff’s office didn’t address the sexual harassment.

The sheriff will pay $2.02 million to compensate the women named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit as part of the settlement agreement’s terms that still needs court approval, the Justice Department said in an April 24 news release.

Burch told WPMI-TV that he hasn’t “signed anything to finalize the agreement” yet.

As for the $2 million settlement, Burch said “the frustration is it offers no solutions,” according to the outlet. He called it a “money grab, for some former employees.”

Sheriff’s office spokeswoman Lori Myles confirmed to McClatchy News on May 1 that the settlement hasn’t been signed and is “in the hands of the courts.” She declined to comment further.

The lawsuit settlement specifically resolves claims that the sheriff’s office violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in dismissing the female officers’ complaints, prosecutors said.

“Just like any other workplace, jails must take steps necessary to ensure that female employees are not subject to a sexually hostile work environment in any form,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

Female officers’ concerns about sexual harassment dismissed, lawsuit says

The case dates to March 2021, when the sexual harassment lawsuit was initially filed.

Female corrections officers regularly faced sexual propositioning and “gunning,” also known as “exhibitionist masturbation,” from male inmates, the amended complaint says.

For one corrections officer, the inmates’ persistent masturbation “sickened” her to the point where she needed to take sick leave from work on several occasions, according to the complaint.

When she submitted disciplinary reports, supervisors “lost or ignored” the reports, the complaint says.

Another corrections officer said she witnessed one inmate masturbate over a dozen times during a single shift in 2015 and that she had regularly submitted disciplinary reports regarding inmates exposing themselves, the complaint says.

Although the jail was aware of the sexual harassment, it continued to persist, according to the complaint.

Jail supervisors were “dismissive of (the women’s) concerns, dissuading charging parties from continuing to complain,” the complaint says.

They’re accused of telling the female corrections officers to “find another job” if they didn’t like how they were being treated, and “that’s what you get paid for,” according to the complaint.

The complaint accuses the sheriff’s office of not training officers enough for them to adequately respond to sexual harassment from inmates.

If the settlement agreement is approved, Burch will need to establish a new inmate sexual misconduct policy and train employees on it, have a housing area for inmates “guilty of sexual misconduct” and designate an officer to make sure the new sexual misconduct policy is followed, prosecutors said.

The sheriff said he has already established a “new reporting system” for jail staff, according to WPMI-TV.

“You’re not going to prevent a thug from being a thug. There’s nothing you can do to stop an inmate from behaving this way. All you can do is punish them,” Burch told the outlet while adding inmates are punished for misbehaving.

The lawsuit was filed as part of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Initiative, prosecutors said.

Mobile is located along Alabama’s Gulf Coast, about 170 miles southwest of Montgomery.

This story was originally published April 25, 2023 at 11:18 AM with the headline "Jail staff blamed ‘cute’ female officers for ongoing sexual harassment, lawsuit says."

Julia Marnin

McClatchy DC

Julia Marnin covers courts for McClatchy News, writing about criminal and civil affairs, including cases involving policing, corrections, civil liberties, fraud, and abuses of power. As a reporter on McClatchy’s National Real-Time Team, she’s also covered the COVID-19 pandemic and a variety of other topics since joining in 2021, following a fellowship with Newsweek. Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, she was raised in South Jersey and is now based in New York State.