Safety of all prisoners should be guaranteed by government
By Lovisa Stannow, McClatchy-Tribune
Monday, July 27, 2009
Prison officials need to do more to protect inmates from sexual assault. And there is one group of inmates whose vulnerability has gone all but unnoticed -- and that's people who are transgender.
The majority of U.S. corrections systems house inmates based on their birth gender, disregarding other factors, such as physical appearance that may be entirely feminine (including breasts) or government identity documents that categorize these individuals as female.
Not surprisingly, while in men's detention facilities, most transgender women are sexually assaulted.
A recent academic study of the experiences of hundreds of transgender women in California's men's prisons -- a survey that was commissioned by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation -- revealed that 59 percent of male-to-female transgender prisoners had been sexually assaulted while incarcerated. A shocking 0 percent of these inmates considered prison officials to be allies in protecting their physical safety.
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