Jails...

Yesterday I wrote about the arrest of “CeCe” McDonald and how she was put in solitary confinement, today I want to write about how trans-people are treated in jails. This is the tale of two jails…

SPLC Demands Orleans Parish Sheriff Protect Transsexual Prisoner Raped at Prison
Southern Poverty Law Center
3/28/2012

SPLC letter details gang rape, failure to protect inmate

The Southern Poverty Law Center has demanded that the Orleans Parish sheriff in Louisiana immediately take steps to protect a transsexual inmate who has been repeatedly raped and tortured at the Orleans Parish Prison or face a federal lawsuit.

The demand was made in a letter sent to Sheriff Marlin N. Gusman today. It details the violent sexual abuse endured by S.T., a transsexual woman who was gang-raped at knifepoint by five men in one facility for 40 minutes. The Feb. 27 attack occurred was witnessed by other prisoners. Guards failed to protect S.T.
[…]
Days after the Feb. 27 attack, S.T. was moved to another building at the prison, where she was raped repeatedly by another prisoner over the course of two weeks. The attacks escalated in severity and frequency, with her attacker breaking one of her teeth and attempting to strangle her. Sheriff’s deputies still failed to protect her.

S.T. was finally transported to a hospital, where test results confirm she has contracted HIV, after enduring almost a month of rapes and sexual torture at the prison. She was HIV negative when she entered the prison.

Inexplicably, after the hospital visit, sheriff’s deputies attempted to return S.T. to the same area where she was repeatedly attacked by one prisoner. Her attacker remains on that floor.

I don’t care what she was imprisoned for, nobody deserves to be ganged raped. She has now gotten a life sentence with HIV/AIDS.

Compare this with…

LAPD plans separate jail for transgender suspects
Police will open a 24-bed facility in response to the risk of violence among the general inmate population. Chief Charlie Beck instructs officers to treat transgender people with respect.
Los Angeles Times
By Sam Quinones
April 15, 2012

Responding to incidents of violence against transgender arrestees, the Los Angeles Police Department plans to open a segregated lockup for biologically male and female suspects who identify themselves as members of the opposite sex, officials said.

By early May, a 24-bed transgender module will open at the LAPD women's jail downtown, the first such police lockup in the nation, according to Capt. Dave Lindsay, the jail division commander.

"This is a major change," Lindsay said. It will allow for "an environment that's safe and secure, as there's been a history of violence against transgender people."

The courts have ruled over and over again that all prisoner have a right to be safe. That the jails have an obligation to protect prisoners from harm, that may not always happen, but correction facilities have duty to make jails as safe as possible. There are numerous prisoners who committed minor or are just being held until their trail that have been assaulted, raped and murdered while in jail. Many like S.T. have acquired HIV/AIDS while in prison because of rapes.

What Los Angeles is doing is a major step forward in helping protect trans-people human rights.