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A 19-year-old Alachua County, Florida, college student was raped by his cellmate as he served the first of four weekend sentences for delivering marijuana, a felony offense. (The student's name has not been released.) He had been placed in a cell with a violent offender who had been in the county jail for 11 months awaiting trial on sexual battery charges.
The two men were sharing a cell because the jail was overcrowded. Typically, inmates are classified according to offense, criminal history, gender, and/or age, among other factors, when assigned to their cells. Because certain offenders need to be isolated for safety reasons, a jail's capacity is in reality much lower than the number of beds it houses.
While the Alachua County jail could theoretically hold 920 inmates, in reality it could only accommodate an average of 782 inmates on any given day because of the need to separate certain offenders. On the day the college student was raped, the jail contained 918 inmates, far exceeding capacity. Such overcrowding had been typical in the jail since 1998.
Though the two men would normally have been separated, they were grouped together because delivering marijuana and sexual battery are both considered felonies. According to Alachua County Sheriff's Sergeant Jim Troiano, "If there was space available, absolutely we would rather keep the weekenders in a pre-designated area. But because we don't have much space available we have to do with circumstances on hand."
NewsHawk: Stoner4Life - 420Magazine.com
Source: Marijuana Policy Project
Copyright: 2006 Marijuana Policy Project
Contact: info@mpp.org
Website: Marijuana Policy Project | We Change Laws
The two men were sharing a cell because the jail was overcrowded. Typically, inmates are classified according to offense, criminal history, gender, and/or age, among other factors, when assigned to their cells. Because certain offenders need to be isolated for safety reasons, a jail's capacity is in reality much lower than the number of beds it houses.
While the Alachua County jail could theoretically hold 920 inmates, in reality it could only accommodate an average of 782 inmates on any given day because of the need to separate certain offenders. On the day the college student was raped, the jail contained 918 inmates, far exceeding capacity. Such overcrowding had been typical in the jail since 1998.
Though the two men would normally have been separated, they were grouped together because delivering marijuana and sexual battery are both considered felonies. According to Alachua County Sheriff's Sergeant Jim Troiano, "If there was space available, absolutely we would rather keep the weekenders in a pre-designated area. But because we don't have much space available we have to do with circumstances on hand."
NewsHawk: Stoner4Life - 420Magazine.com
Source: Marijuana Policy Project
Copyright: 2006 Marijuana Policy Project
Contact: info@mpp.org
Website: Marijuana Policy Project | We Change Laws
