A former corrections officer has sued the state of Missouri, alleging she was sexually harassed and subjected to retaliation when she complained about a hostile work environment at Potosi Correctional Center.
The lawsuit by Patricia Lawson is the latest in a string of complaints about harassment within Missouri's prisons that has seen millions in damages paid out in recent years to other women who had worked in the system.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Lawson's lawsuit says she was subjected to sexual propositions, called vulgar sexist names and threatened with violence in 2018 after she complained. The lawsuit says her bosses at the prison increasingly made her job more difficult after she complained and eventually fired her.