Lovisa Stannow

Just Detention International

Lovisa Stannow is the executive director of Just Detention International, an international human rights organization that seeks to end sexual abuse in all forms of detention.

Prison Rape: “That Check I Wrote Cost Me My Life”

Lovisa Stannow

Convicted of check fraud, a man was repeatedly raped and beaten in an Arkansas prison. As a result, he walked out of prison with a death sentence -- not handed down by a judge or jury, but by the corrections staff who failed to keep him safe; Bryson contracted HIV because of the rapes.

It’s Time to End the Epidemic of Prisoner Rape

Lovisa Stannow

At least 60,500 federal and state prison inmates were sexually abused at their current facility in the preceding year alone, according to a 2007 nationwide study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). A similar study revealed that nearly 25,000 county jail detainees were sexually abused in the prior six months. This violence is not limited to adult prisoners – in January, another BJS report found that almost one in eight youth in juvenile detention reported being sexually abused in the preceding year; at the worst facilities, one in three kids were victimized.