Earlier this month, the Department of Justice filed a complaint against the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office and the Mobile County Sheriff, Sam Cochran, alleging repeated sexual harassment inflicted on female correctional officers by inmates the officers were forced to patrol. The extent of the harassment, as argued in the lawsuit, was so invasive and serious that it fundamentally changed the conditions of employment for female correctional officers employed by the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office.

According to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, “Female corrections officers… were regularly subjected to severe and pervasive sexual harassment in the workplace by male inmates.” And when these complaints were brought to management, they were not taken seriously, and no effective action was taken to remedy the harassment.

The inmates the female correction officers were repeatedly in contact with would “frequently expose their genitals… and direct sexual slurs, sexual propositions, threats of sexual violence” and more. After repeated attempts to raise these issues with supervisors and management, twelve female correctional officers filed charges of sexual discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). After the EEOC investigated the claim, they found there was a reasonable basis to believe there were violations of Title VII and then attempted to pursue conciliation efforts. After those proved unsuccessful, the EEOC referred the case to the Justice Department.

Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on March 10, 2021, against the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office and Mobile County Sheriff alleging that the combined office discriminated “against current and former female corrections officers and other similarly situated female employees on the basis of sex.” Sexual harassment is considered a prohibited act under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it is a form of sex discrimination.

The Department of Justice states the Sheriff’s Office, including the Sheriff himself, violated Title VII, 42 U.S.C Section 2000e-2(a) by subjecting “the charging parties to harassment based on their sex,” all of which was “sufficiently severe and/or pervasive to alter the terms and conditions of the victims’ employment.” The lack of action by the Sheriff’s Office “created a sexually abusive work environment” especially since, as the lawsuit argues, the defendants were fully aware of the situation and refused to act.

The Department of Justice has requested a jury trial, in which they seek a declaration that the Sheriff’s Office violated Title VII and for the charging parties to receive appropriate compensation in line with section 102 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 including a section, Title VII, which prohibits “employment discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, and national origin.” The Act created the EEOC to enforce Title VII and work to eliminate unlawful employment discrimination. In 1972, Congress gave the EEOC the authority to file lawsuits against private companies and expanded Title VII to also apply to all federal government agencies, and all state and local government entities with at least 15 employees.

In 1991, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1991, which took away unnecessary barriers for employees to win discrimination lawsuits. Under this new rule, employees now had the right to request a jury trial in Title VII lawsuits. Plaintiffs were also eligible to recover compensatory and punitive damages against their employers.

On February 28, 2018, the Justice Department announced their second initiative to combat sexual harassment, the Sexual Harassment in the Workplace Initiative (SHWI). This effort was focused specifically on combatting abuse in the public sector.

News like this is often sobering. When an individual has endured sexual harassment or is currently threatened by potential abuse, the sheriff’s department is usually the first governmental entity called. But if they are not even willing to protect their own from the harassment of inmates, it is difficult to understand why they would extend that protection to others.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report in September 2020 to Congress on Workplace Sexual Harassment. The study finds that the data stored and collected nationwide is not sufficient to fully understand the depth, cost, and likelihood of sexual harassment in the workplace. Not only do individuals habitually underreport the harassment they experience, but the infrastructure for archiving this data is not at the same level for each state.