PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Donna Hylton on Sexual Abuse at Rikers Island
0:24:14
·
12 min
Donna Hylton provides testimony about her personal experience of sexual abuse as an adolescent at Rikers Island nearly 40 years ago, highlighting the ongoing nature of such abuse in the correctional system. She criticizes the lack of substantial change despite repeated hearings and calls for recognizing the humanity of incarcerated individuals.
- Hylton describes being sexually abused by a female captain while in protective custody, and subsequently facing retaliation and false accusations.
- She emphasizes the lasting trauma of sexual abuse and the frustration of having to repeatedly share these painful stories without seeing significant improvements.
- Hylton mentions over 700 lawsuits filed by women alleging sexual abuse, questioning the system's integrity and calling for accountability and change.
Donna Hylton
0:24:14
Good morning.
0:24:16
Just wanna say thank you for having us here again, unfortunately.
0:24:22
You know, I'm taking time to reflect as I hear my peers speak about their trauma, the situations that happened to them.
0:24:34
And I'm sitting here 40 almost 40 years later, from what happened to me on rhymes island as an adolescent.
0:24:45
So it's it's painful.
0:24:49
It's painful to have to hear this almost 40 years later that this this trauma, the trauma of abuse, sexual abuse continues to permeate the very fabric of an island that we know should have long, long time ago been shut down.
0:25:11
And it hurts me as a woman, as a mother, just as a human being to continue to hear these stories.
0:25:19
It makes me look at my own as insignificant, but it's not.
0:25:24
It's not.
0:25:24
It's shameful.
0:25:26
It's shameful.
0:25:29
40 years ago, I was on Ryder's Island as an adolescent.
0:25:34
I was placed into protective custody.
0:25:38
A place within a very abnormal place that said he was more secure, more safe, more stable, that I would be protected.
0:25:57
1 of my protectors was a captain on Rikers Island.
0:26:06
Was my first time being in the system, my first and only time.
0:26:11
Let's be clear, because we hear these conversations, the rhetoric and the victory of those of us who are criminally just as impacted, who are worse than, less than, and not deserving of.
0:26:24
Like, because we have been impacted by the system, whether we do something or not guilt or innocence should not be a factor, that we are not deserving, we are less than.
0:26:34
And so why listen to us?
0:26:35
Why care?
0:26:36
Why my father.
0:26:38
And that's wrong.
0:26:42
A female captain who I thought was there to protect me and to guide me through the system that I knew nothing about as an adolescent, isolated, secluded from everyone because this label was placed on me to protect me as one of the youngest ones on the island.
0:27:12
This woman took advantage of me, manipulated me into thinking that she was there, to protect me, to make sure nothing happened to me.
0:27:28
She did things that I don't even wanna discuss.
0:27:35
She did things that no captain who says that they take a oath to protect, to serve, to care, custody control, we know the rhetoric.
0:27:52
Did not do.
0:27:54
But instead violated that oath every single chance that she got.
0:28:03
Who could I tell?
0:28:06
Who could I turn to in protective custody?
0:28:10
In a jail that was run by officers, captains, sergeants, tenants, debts, you name it, wardens that say that they're there to protect, to care, to maintain custody.
0:28:41
I didn't see it.
0:28:43
As a result as a result, her wife who was a deputy found out that she was, I guess, favoring me too much.
0:29:00
I went to court one morning at 6 o'clock in the morning.
0:29:04
I came back at 10 o'clock at night, and I was then placed.
0:29:10
I was taken from the status of active custody and now put into administrative segregation.
0:29:16
And I didn't understand what that meant.
0:29:20
I didn't understand the rules or the procedures.
0:29:22
Again, it was my first time, and my naivete spoke volumes.
0:29:31
I was placed in administrative segregation because her wife, the deputy, and I'm going to say because I even wrote about it and I speak about it and I not lying.
0:29:42
We are not liars.
0:29:46
Had someone place a shank that I didn't even know what a shank was.
0:29:51
In my cell when I left to go to court, a shank that I stood to this day almost 40 years later have not seen.
0:30:03
And accused me of things that I had no understanding of, no knowledge of, I didn't wouldn't even know how to do it.
0:30:14
And as a result, I was placed into solitary confinement.
0:30:22
Let's call it what it is.
0:30:24
Solitary confinement.
0:30:26
Locked.
0:30:28
For 90 days, for having something I never saw accused of things I've never done, all because this deputy was angry with her wife, the captain, who was sexually assaulting a detainee, an adolescent debate detainee on Rikers Island in protective custody.
0:30:58
And I'm giving it to you in that way because that's how it happened, and that's how it continues to happen.
0:31:05
And we have these hearings.
0:31:07
We meet.
0:31:08
We talk.
0:31:11
You listen.
0:31:13
But as you said, counsel, I'm in the nurse.
0:31:16
2018 when we had that hearing.
0:31:21
And here we are.
0:31:23
In 2024 having another one.
0:31:29
And so you listen to us, you hear our stories, you hear our pain.
0:31:43
You hear our trauma?
0:31:47
You tell it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
0:32:00
When when Will we be heard?
0:32:08
When will we be believed?
0:32:13
No, we don't wear uniform
Chaplain Dr. Victoria Phillips
0:32:16
with stripes
Donna Hylton
0:32:19
and metals and badges, but we wear something else.
0:32:28
We wear our truths.
0:32:32
We wear our trauma.
0:32:34
We wear the abuse.
0:32:37
We wear it every single day.
0:32:44
I'm not even crying for me right now.
0:32:46
I'm crying for them.
0:32:50
Because 40 years ago, this happened to me.
0:32:54
And 40 years later, I have to hear this young woman.
0:32:58
Talk about what just happened to her.
0:33:04
When will we see different?
0:33:08
When will we be treated as human beings?
0:33:13
Regardless of guilt or innocence being so called Korea, criminals, whatever these labels you want them to represent, you see through instead of seeing a human being and recognizing humanity that everyone should have, when will this change?
0:33:38
Priya was inactive because of things that we're telling you today, I was a part of prayer being enacted in Bedford Hills.
0:33:49
I left Rutgers Island to go into a state prison where their sexual abuse continued.
0:33:57
We talk about pipelines.
0:34:01
Let's be clear in what the system overall represents, the types of pipelines that the system represents, that boxes us into that forces us to have to live through, and then you call us monsters.
0:34:23
The nerve, the audacity to call us monsters.
0:34:30
When everyone, everyone has a role in these situations.
0:34:41
Silence is an act of guilt.
0:34:48
Allow your silence to shake you for a minute.
0:34:55
Look at yourselves in the mirror.
0:34:58
Those of you that Work on ripers and represent law enforcement.
0:35:04
Why did you take an oath?
0:35:07
Why?
0:35:10
Be real and honest with yourselves.
0:35:13
Because if you continue to look at those of us like we are less than?
0:35:18
How do we look at you?
0:35:22
How can I respect you?
0:35:26
How can I value you?
0:35:29
How can I see your humanity?
0:35:32
How when you don't see mine?
0:35:40
The time is now.
0:35:42
We can not continue to have these conversations over and over and over and over again.
0:35:49
We cannot.
0:35:51
Over 700, 700 women filed lawsuits.
0:35:59
Allegedly, right claiming alleged sexual abuse.
0:36:07
Something's wrong with that number.
0:36:08
And if you think 7 over 700 women are lying, I know I'm not lying.
0:36:15
I even wrote about it in a book, my book, to tell my truth, because I'm tired of being labeled, and I'm tired of you saying I'm less than and not worthy, and I'm tired because I continue to see the same things happening over and over and over again.
0:36:31
Again, why are we here today?
0:36:39
So if nothing we've said here today has changed anything in you, your thoughts, the ways you see us, to believe us.
0:36:51
What's the point?
0:36:54
And who are we?
0:36:55
Who are you as human beings?
0:36:59
Who are you?
0:37:02
What's what are you here for?
0:37:07
What are you here for?
0:37:10
Thank you.
