The Law Protects Prison Employees Who Report Abuse From Retaliation

Reporting misconduct by your employer is a legally protected activity.  This means that, if you see employees in your workplace violating legal regulations, committing crimes, or simply engaging in reckless or malicious acts that cause physical or financial harm, you have the right to complain about it to the leadership of your organization or to national or state regulators; this type of complaint is known as a whistleblower action.  Your employer may not fire you, demote you, or otherwise penalize you for speaking up about the misconduct; if your employer takes an adverse action against you in response to the whistleblower action, this is employer retaliation, which is illegal.  News coverage about whistleblower protections often centers on claims about financial misconduct or violations of laws meant to reduce the public’s exposure to environmental pollution.  Meanwhile, employees at state and federal prisons sometimes witness physical and sexual abuse of inmates and fear retaliation if they say something, even if the whistleblower claim is a matter of life or death.  A Los Angeles retaliation lawyer can help you if you are a prison employee who has witnessed abuse of inmates or other misconduct at your place of employment.

State and Federal Prison Employees Have the Right to Report Misconduct Without Fear of Employer Retaliation

The law allows imprisonment as a punishment for serious crimes, but inmates in state and federal prisons have the right to protection from violence and abuse.  Unfortunately, sexual harassment, bullying, and violence are more prevalent in prisons than you would know unless you have served a prison sentence or worked in a prison.  Sometimes prison employees ignore violent attacks and sexual assaults by one inmate against another, even if the employees witness the violence with their own eyes, and sometimes they intentionally do nothing when inmates complain about harassment and threats they are receiving from their fellow inmates.

You might feel powerless to stop the abuse if your coworkers and direct supervisors seem to permit it or even encourage it.  From a legal perspective, though, you can and should say something.  If you are a state employee working in a state correctional facility or county jail and you experience retaliation after you complaint about violation or noncompliance with a law or regulation, then you should follow the provisions of California Labor Code 1102.5; in this case, filing a lawsuit against your employer for the violations is fairly simple.

If you work in a federal prison, then the rules for federal employees apply to you.  Before an employee can file a lawsuit against a federal prison, the employee must first go through the preliminary complaint process with the Merit Protection Systems Board.  You can only sue your employer after you exhaust all of the processes available through the Office of Special Counsel and then the MSPB.

Speak With a Los Angeles Employer Retaliation Lawyer

A Los Angeles employer retaliation lawyer can help you if you are a prison employee and you want to speak up against mistreatment of inmates at your workplace.  Contact Litigation, P.C. in Los Angeles, California to discuss your situation or call (424)284-2401.

Source:

leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1102.5&lawCode=LAB