Why California Prison Sexual Assault Survivors Should Be Freed

By Elizabeth Lozano, especially for CalMatters

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Along with at least 1 in 4 women in this country, I am a survivor of sexual assault. I’ve been in jail too. And the family I built with other people incarcerated at the California Center for Women in Chowchilla was essential to my survival.

Sexual abuse in prison is even worse than you can imagine. There is no security behind bars. When a prison warden is the person committing the sexual assault, you are at his mercy as an incarcerated person.

That’s why I was horrified when I watched guards round up many of the people incarcerated at the California Center for Women, hold them in the cafeteria and release pepper spray and tear gas again and again, apparently as punishment for making complaints about sexual misconduct.

A video of this revenge incident was leaked and the reality of life for people who experienced sexual abuse by prison staff became widely known.

That was in August 2024, but little has changed for the inmates who, every day, still have to face the people who attacked them – and in some cases, who continue to abuse them.

Some guards were fired after this video leaked. One guard was sentenced to 224 years for multiple allegations of sexual assault against at least nine women. But the leaked video was just one incident in one day at one prison. This is just a glimpse of what really goes on behind bars.

The reality is, in prisonsurvivors face a cycle of violence and abuse by prison staff. Although we can technically file a complaint and hope for liability, this rarely results in safety or protection for us. Even worse, filing a complaint after a prison guard has sexually assaulted you usually results in retaliation.

The California State Government and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation are responsible for the care of anyone serving a sentence in their facilities. And they’re not doing their job by keeping women behind bars with their abusers, whose wages are paid by California taxpayers.

I remember one time when a male guard put his hands in my shirt and then said, “Thanks, I should have warmed my hands.” Another time the guards repeatedly touched me in front of me – only this and other sexual violations continued for years.

I remember having to sit through one of my parole hearings with one of the prison officers who was abusing me.

I have also seen prison officers sexually abuse other people. Seeing it happen makes you feel like it’s happening to you. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

It is long past time for California to provide real support and respite to survivors of sexual assault in our state prisons. Ultimately, the only way to protect these survivors from retaliation and further violence is to release them from prisons where guards assaulted them and routinely retaliate if they report it. State Task Force to Study Sexual Assault Response and Prevention made this recommendation in a 2024 report.

There are so many ways our prison system is broken. Outstanding sentences only add to the challenges we face once we are released from prison.

When those of us who have served time do the work to heal—even as we survive the ongoing harassment and assault from the people who are supposed to protect us—we deserve recognition for that work and resilience. We all deserve a path forward that centers our healing and allows us to return home to help heal our families as well.

One step forward is to prioritize the release of people locked up in special facilities for women who face unsafe conditions every day.

California has the power to — and should — update its Department of Corrections policy to allow someone to be released after being assaulted by prison officials. There is no way this survivor is safe inside.

The only way for the survivors of the prison to be safe is to set us free.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.