Updated

Like most preschoolers, the 3-year-old girl who lives in Montgomery is a whirl of energy. She sings and dances through the house and loves cartoons.

About once a month a relative takes her to visit at Alabama's Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women where her mother, Monica Washington, is incarcerated on a robbery conviction. Her father was an officer at the prison and pleaded guilty in 2011 to custodial sexual misconduct after a DNA test showed he had gotten Washington pregnant, said Charlotte Morrison, a senior attorney with the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative.

In January, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a scathing report that put a spotlight on what it called conditions of sexual abuse and harassment by correctional staff at Alabama's only prison for women.