There were instances in Pennsylvania of prisoners being beaten, slammed into walls, and taunted with racial slurs. Sure they are abused physically and verbally, and they are crammed in overcrowded understaffed prisons just like the men, but they also must put up with sexual abuse by their captors. They are subject to unwarranted visual surveillance, abusive language and pat downs, and sexual assault and the worse part is they cannot escape from their tormentors. The Human Rights Watch found in their study that male corrections officers have vaginally, anally, and orally raped female prisoners and subject them to other forms of sexual abuse. The women are routinely threatened and acted on with physical force if they do not comply.
Male inmates face rape and sexual abuse too, but it is more often from fellow inmates.
The study found that in some instances these encounters were encouraged by prison staff and were allowed to take place. Expanding prisons and building new ones to accommodate the increase in incarcerated persons would be a good start. Better training for guards would go a long way in improving conditions. There are some common sense measures that can be taken such as writing laws prohibiting guards from engaging in abusive treatment of prisoners. At the time of the studies publication in 1998, fifteen states did not have laws prohibiting sexual misconduct by guards.