New Federal Standards Offer Unprecedented Protections to LGBTI Prisoners
May 21, 2012
Yesterday the Department of Justice (DOJ) released the long-awaited
National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape.
These standards – the first of their kind—create an historic opportunity
to put an end to the epidemic of sexual abuse in prison, which
disproportionately affects prisoners who are lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender or have intersex conditions (LGBTI).
Sexual abuse in prisons is so common that it’s a subject of jokes,
but it causes severe and lasting harm to thousands of people each year. A
report
just released by DOJ shows that almost one in 10 former state prisoners
were sexually abused during their incarceration. For gay men, it was
nearly four in 10. A separate survey
reported that 15 percent of transgender people in prison were sexually
assaulted; for transgender African-Americans, the number was 35 percent.
The new standards aim to prevent sexual abuse from occurring in the
first place, and to detect and appropriately respond to it when it does
happen. We are thrilled that DOJ adopted several recommendations we
made as part of a coalition of LGBTI advocacy groups, including:
• A prohibition against segregated units for LGBTI prisoners, which can stigmatize them and increase the risk of abuse.
• Requiring consideration of a prisoner’s actual or perceived
LGBTI status or gender non-conformity in assessing the risk for
victimization.
• Staff training on effective communication with LGBTI and gender
nonconforming prisoners, which will help prevent abuse and encourage
reporting when it occurs.
• Case-by-case determination of housing assignments for prisoners
who are transgender or have intersex conditions – no more assignment
based on genital status alone.
• Allowing prisoners who are transgender or have intersex
conditions to shower separately from others, removing one of the most
vulnerable situations for these prisoners.
• A prohibition against physical exams of transgender prisoners
and those with intersex conditions solely for the purpose of determining
genital status, which can be humiliating and traumatic and also an
opportunity for sexual abuse by staff.
• Strict limits on the use of isolating protective custody.
These standards have the power to save lives and transform the way
LGBTI prisoners are treated in prison. We now need to ensure that they
are fully enforced.
The standards were adopted by DOJ to comply with the Prison Rape
Elimination Act, a law enacted by Congress in 2003. They apply to all
facilities operated by the federal Bureau of Prisons as well as adult
prisons and jails, juvenile detention facilities, police lock-ups, and
community confinement facilities that receive federal funds.
Unfortunately immigration detention facilities have been left out
of the protection of the standards even though sexual abuse of
immigration detainees is a pervasive problem. Indeed, a report issued last year by the ACLU of Arizona documented sexual abuse of gay
and transgender immigration detainees, including a gay man who was
raped by another detainee and then put in protective custody and left
completely alone, where he kept reliving the trauma. A memorandum
issued by President Obama requires the Department of Homeland Security
to develop its own standards over the next eight months for immigration
detention facilities. We will be urging DHS to adopt equally rigorous
standards to protect immigration detainees.
