People call me “Mama Detroit,” after my hometown. As a former nurse, a current journalist, a biological mother of three, and a mother figure to many, I’m always looking to empower women here at Lane Murray Unit in Gatesville, Texas. Of the 17 years that I’ve been incarcerated for killing an abusive boyfriend, I spent eight — from 2016 to last May — in what the state calls “restrictive housing,” but I call “solitary confinement” or “the hole.”
One afternoon in my solitary cell block, I overheard an incarcerated woman ask a guard for toilet tissue. His response — “What you gonna do for it?” — stayed with me. So later that day, during one of my twice-weekly hours in the outdoor recreation cage, I started asking questions:
“Raise your hand if you’ve ever been sexually abused while in prison,” I called out to the 30 or so other women in my cellblock.
A few tentatively hung their arms out of the cell windows I could see from the cage.
“OK, how many of you have ever had a guard watch you on the toilet or take a shower?”
Lots of hands went up. “Of course!” one woman shouted.
“How many of you have experienced a guard knocking your makeshift covering from the viewing window on your door while you were changing your pad or tampon and then just standing there making trivial conversation?”
Everyone called out in recognition.
“Have you ever taken your shirt off when a guard came by with the food cart so that you wouldn't get passed for a meal?”
“Yes!”
‘While escorting you, has a guard ever rubbed his genitals against your handcuffed hands?”
All hands went up.
“Have guards ever called you a ‘cunt,’ ‘bitch’ or ‘ho?’”
I heard lots of laughter and people hitting the walls with their handheld mirrors or bare hands in agreement.
“How many of you have a prison ‘boyfriend’?”
About every woman younger than 25 raised her hand.
“That’s all sexual abuse,” I told them.
A silence hung over the concrete corridor.
This rec cage lesson re-confirmed what I’ve observed over the past 17 years: In women’s prisons, sexual intrusion, harassment, coercion and violence are daily realities. And in solitary confinement, this conduct is so routine that many women — particularly the younger ones — don’t even think of it as abuse. They believe it’s simply an inevitable part of their incarceration.
For the record, sexual contact with people in prison is a felony in Texas, and the state's department of corrections has a “zero tolerance” policy against it. Texas is also required to comply with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which was passed in 2003 to eradicate all forms of sexual abuse. But what I’ve observed inside these walls of Lane Murray tells a different story.
Last year, I watched one guard yank off his uniform shirt as he stormed toward the gate. Later, the imprisoned woman he was allegedly engaging in an inappropriate relationship with received a message on her tablet that he had been terminated. In the same month, word spread that a second guard was also fired for sexual misconduct.
This isn’t just a few rotten apples in one facility. In 2023, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TCDJ) reported over 700 allegations of staff-on-prisoner sexual abuse and harassment to the PREA Ombudsman, an independent office that tallies up and investigates complaints. Almost 90 of those cases involved sexual harassment, nearly 150 were categorized as voyeurism, and a little more than 500 were classified as sexual abuse.
Of the 505 abuse claims, only 20% met the prison system’s onerous criteria for sexual assault or “improper sexual activity with a person in custody.”
I believe these stats only scratch the surface. On the outside, fewer than half of sexual violence cases are reported to police, with victims often citing fear of retaliation or disbelief from those in power as the reason. Given the power dynamics of prison, underreporting is likely more severe here.
The biggest obstacle to reporting abuse in prison is getting someone to actually file your complaint. Nepotism is rampant, and many guards aren't willing to report their friends and family.
In solitary, you depend on staff to put your letters in the mailbox. Some simply discard them, which can cause you to miss the 15-day deadline for filing a grievance. I know guards toss mail because some actually brag about it. And women who can see the trash can at the entrance from their cells often announce, “They just trashed some mail!”
Prisons can also make the grievance process too painful to be worth it. Women who make reports can end up being cited for having an “inappropriate relationship” with a guard, which is grounds for being sent to solitary. You often can’t bring your property, hygiene items or your tablet with you. No tablet means no phone calls, and contact visits can also be suspended during investigations, which I’ve seen last 60 to 90 days, or even longer.
In the hole, guards use a variety of methods to retaliate against women who complain about their abuse. They can write bogus disciplinary infractions that can lead to the loss of visits and phone calls, more time in solitary confinement, and ultimately a longer sentence. Officers can also turn off the electricity and running water in women’s cells and refuse to serve them meals. To maintain control, officers can keep this treatment going from shift to shift.
Even when Texas prisoners do take the risk to report staff sexual misconduct or abuse, accountability is rare. I haven’t found a single comprehensive source for case data, but a 2015 Marshall Project investigation found that from 2000 to 2014, Texas prosecutors failed to pursue almost half of the nearly 400 cases that the prison system’s inspector general referred to them.
Of the 126 workers — mostly guards — who were convicted, only nine were sentenced to state jail. Most received fines ranging from $200 to $4,000 and a type of probation that allowed them to clear their record upon completion. These lenient punishments reflect a broader pattern of minimizing sexual violence against incarcerated women.
Holding COs accountable could go a long way in changing the culture of sexual violence in prisons. But that still wouldn’t change a major underlying problem: Sexual abuse is normalized in many women’s lives long before they get to prison.
Those coming out of Texas’ notoriously troubled youth facilities have already been primed by what a recent federal investigation described as “a pervasive atmosphere of sexual abuse, grooming and lack of staff accountability and training.”
Society’s systematic failure to protect and support vulnerable girls and women creates cycles of victimization that often begin in childhood. In a 2014 survey of roughly 430 women in Texas prisons, 58% reported being abused as kids. Nearly half said they'd experienced sexual violence as adults before they got to prison. And a quarter reported being forced to trade sex for money, food or other basic needs prior to their incarceration.
On the outside, concepts like sexual exploitation and victim-blaming have been thoroughly discussed and debated. More people are being taught that compliance is not truly voluntary when it is based on intimidation, threats or controlling behaviors.
But prisoners exist in a void where societal norms don't apply, and that’s amplified in solitary. The power of guards over the people in their charge is absolute. Women are confined to their cells 23 hours a day, and “recreation” happens in tiny outdoor cages. Contact with other humans is almost completely cut off. Even attorney visits take place in a coffin-sized mesh cage with a slot to pass paperwork.
Because women are solely dependent on officers to feed them, take them to the shower and deliver essentials like medication, toilet paper and tampons, sexual exploitation is all but guaranteed. It is not uncommon for guards to withhold food and other necessities unless we take our shirts off. A common refrain I’ve heard from younger officers is, “Show something, fo’ something!”
I am still haunted by an act one of my neighbors performed one night in 2019 to save my life. I have a peanut allergy, which can be deadly in solitary confinement because our 24-hour medical clinic is several buildings away and nobody in the hole has direct access to an EpiPen.
Our meals arrive in solitary pre-made, so I can never be sure if there will be traces of peanut butter on my food. That particular night, when I felt that familiar tingle on my lips, I banged on the door to alert my neighbors. (The in-cell emergency button didn’t work for the entire time that I was in the unit.) As the word spread, everyone was banging on their doors with cups and yelling out their windows. When a guard finally came, he walked right by my cell.
My neighbor called out to him to tell him I needed Benadryl. Then, I heard the unmistakable clang of the food slot in her door opening and a guard pressing his body against it.
Minutes later, I heard my neighbor say, “Go! Imma finish when you bring Benadryl back!” My back was itching, and my eyes were puffy when he threw a handful of Benadryl pills wrapped in toilet paper through my door gap on his way back to her cell door.
I will always be grateful to my former neighbor for saving my life. But I will never forgive the system for putting her on her knees to do it.
While much of the staff sexual abuse we suffer comes in the form of bribery, extortion and coercion, I’ve also heard countless stories of violence over the years. Last year, as reported by Texas Public Radio, my former neighbor Elizabeth was allegedly attacked by a guard in solitary whose sexual advances she had rebuffed. The incident took place as he was escorting her back to her cell in handcuffs. He tried to trip her, and she went limp to avoid a bigger fall. The officer allegedly lifted her up and slammed her to the ground, leaving her with a black eye and stitches in her face. Liz followed protocol and filed a grievance that included multiple witness statements. But TDCJ claimed that she caused her own injuries by causing guards to fall on top of her. By blaming Liz, Texas took a play right out of the domestic abuser handbook.
In this environment where violence and secrecy reign supreme, women begin to see abuse as a routine part of our punishment. This confusion about how to determine what is truly in our best interest and whose authority to trust not only perpetuates a culture of silence, but also undermines fundamental principles of rehabilitation and justice. Victims are left grappling with their experiences, unable to fully comprehend or acknowledge the extent of the abuse they have suffered.
Like many of the women here, I was taught that good girls are quiet and obedient and never question adults. I got that message from Catholic school, where I attended daily religion classes, and the Southern Baptist Church, where I went three to four times a week. When women showed up with black eyes, my congregation prayed for them to behave. I was one of many children molested at that church.
It took me coming to prison to really answer the question, “Why didn't I say no?” The bottom line: I didn’t know I could. Nobody ever told me I could. I’m 52 years old now and was once a mandatory reporter of abuse, but only now am I starting to fully understand this horrifying dynamic.
That's why I keep speaking up, teaching and trying to help the young women here understand their rights and their worth. No one should accept abuse as normal or trade their dignity for basic human needs. And no one should have to save a life the way my neighbor saved mine.
Kwaneta Harris is an incarcerated journalist and essayist who has written for a range of outlets including The Austin Chronicle, the Texas Observer, Teen Vogue, Slate, Scalawag and Solitary Watch. She is a 2024 Haymarket Books Writing Freedom Fellow.
Deborah Zalesne is a law professor at CUNY School of Law. She co-authored “Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement” with Christopher Blackwell. The book, which is forthcoming from Pluto Press in September 2025, has contributions from Kwaneta Harris and Terry Kupers.
The TDCJ director of communications denied all claims made about women at Dr. Lane Murray Unit being forced and coerced into sexual acts by staff, as well as all claims of retaliation by guards against women who file grievances or complain about abuse. They also denied claims of prison staff throwing away mail, as well as the claim that in-cell emergency buttons in the administrative segregation unit did not work while Harris was housed there.
TDCJ was unable to confirm the details of two guards’ termination with the information we were able to provide.
In response to fact-checking questions about investigations, TDCJ’s PREA Ombudsman did not respond directly to questions, instead referring us to the Public Information Act department, and the Office of the Inspector General did not respond by publication time.
