Women held at Rikers say they were sexually assaulted during routine medical exams

WNYC News

Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual assault.

Jennifer Levine thought she knew what to expect when she arrived at Rikers Island in 2002.

She was homeless at the time and had been cycling in and out of jail. Levine anticipated the crowded holding cell filled with other women. She knew officers would order her into the showers, order her to strip, and search her body for contraband like drugs or weapons. She knew she would have to put the clothes she was wearing into a clear plastic bag and change into a stiff Department of Correction jumpsuit.

But this time, when Levine went to the clinic for an intake physical, she said, the routine deviated.

She recalled laying on an exam table with stirrups and hearing the snap of rubber as a doctor removed his blue medical glove and told her he was going to perform a vaginal exam — a step in the process that Levine knew to be out of the ordinary.

“I just didn’t understand,” she said. “Why would I need a gynecological exam?”

Read the full story at Gothamist.com.