According to a new report from the Vera Institute of Justice and the jail anarchist group Black & Pink, almost 90 percent of trans prisoners in state prison have been kept in isolation at some point during their imprisonment.
“Most interviewees experienced solitary confinement, sometimes as a result of abuse, prejudice, or fears for safety,” the statement says.
The report’s findings include 280 trans people in state jails across 31 states, with around 73 percent of them being transgender women. In terms of racial populations, approximately 46 percent of respondents were White, 24 percent were Black, 14 percent were Latinx, 11 percent were Native American, and around 5 percent identified as multicultural or belonging to different cultural groups.
“Many respondents reported that they believed it was their best choice to feel safe in protective custody.” According to respondents’ self-reported responses, the average number of stints (times) in solitary confinement while serving their current sentence was 7.7, with the median serving time of about 14 years. Ten percent of respondents said they had been in solitary confinement for fifteen or more days.
Experts from the United Nations (UN) claim that the United States’ policy of putting people in prolonged solitary confinement constitutes torture. Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on abuse, stated in 2020 that “the significant and frequently catastrophic psychological and physical effects of solitary confinement and social isolation are properly documented and range from gradually severe forms of anxiety, stress, and depression to cognitive deficits and homicidal tendencies.”
The primary reasons cited by those surveyed for their placement in solitary confinement were disciplinary infractions (47 percent), staff asserting it was for the individual’s safety (21 percent), or the individual’s own request for protection (19 percent). Other factors (13 percent) included adherence to COVID-19 protocols, Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) investigations, or the individual’s request for reasons unrelated to protection (10 percent). Furthermore, some respondents claimed that corrections officers acted on them in reprisal or harassment, that they were discriminated against because of their transgender identity, or that they were intentionally violating their privacy to protect their personal safety.
“One participant described being placed in solitary for retribution ‘according to an Office of Inspector General research on a kills of corrections officials for unfounded use of force, I was placed it under retribution.’ The report details how another survey respondent who was in solitary confinement at the time of the survey wrote, ‘I’m filling this out while being held while in solitary while being [required to] demand a sexual harassment investigation against an officer.
Transgender people are more prone to harassment and violence in correctional facilities once they are detained and have a higher risk of coming into contact with the criminal justice system. In the United States, according to a survey conducted in 2022 among LGBTQ+ people, 31 percent of them have gone through some form of incarceration.
“The data is clear: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people are overrepresented at every stage of the criminal justice system, starting with juvenile justice system involvement,” a 2021 briefing by the Prison Policy Initiative says. “They are arrested, incarcerated, and subjected to community supervision at significantly higher rates than straight and cisgender people. This applies particularly to queer and transgender women.
More than half of respondents shared instances of non-consensual sexual contact while incarcerated, and the majority of those surveyed also reported experiencing dehumanization and transphobia in state prisons. In many instances, these incidents also led to the person being held in solitary confinement.
Other respondents who claimed they were segregated for contraband alleged that they were targeted for their transgender identity, such as this one who claimed that being harassed by an officer resulted in PTSD and that they were [placed in segregation]. Still, another respondent described being targeted by the warden: ‘The warden of [redacted] unit, [name redacted], said, ‘I have a place for things like you’—meaning transgender people,” the report says.
Survey respondents made explicit suggestions for modifying both the substance and execution of transgender people’s prison sentences, according to the Vera Institute. Respondents stressed the need for clearly defined, flexible policies that would give them access to safer housing options. In order to aid in their gender transition, they also emphasized the value of greater access to gender-affirming medical care, such as hormone therapy or surgery. Additionally, they stressed the necessity for substantial revisions in staff training, practices, and consequences for misconduct and discrimination, aiming to alleviate the negative effects of staff prejudice, threats, and neglect.
Jennifer Peirce, a senior research associate at the Vera Institute and co-author of the report, told The Appeal, “We hope that this report will inspire people to reconsider the causes of some of the things that people experience and the effects on them.” “And that it also, of course, motivates change in policy and practice, but also just more open-mindedness to listen and believe people,” she said.
