Farmer v. Brennan

The controlling Supreme Court precedent in the area of inmate-on-inmate rape and custodial sexual misconduct (sexual abuse of inmates by guards or other corrections officials) is Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994).  In that case, the Supreme Court created a two-part test to establish a violation of the Eighth Amendment: the injury must be "objectively and sufficiently serious," and the prison official must have a "sufficient culpable state of mind," defined as "'deliberate indifference' to inmate health or safety."

Significantly, the Farmer court held that prisoner rape is constitutionally unacceptable.  However, Farmer's subjective intent requirement unfortunately operates to allow abusive prison conditions unless a prison official actually knows of and disregards a substantial risk of danger to an inmate. In other words, under Farmer, proving abusive prison conditions - no matter how bad - is not enough. Farmer requires plaintiffs to prove that officials acted with "deliberate indifference" by both knowing of and disregarding those conditions.