Larn more here almost your right to be protected confronting discrimination and corruption in prison and what to exercise if your rights are violated. The law is e'er evolving. If you take admission to a prison law library, it is a good thought to research new developments.

I experienced set on or excessive strength in prison

Your rights

  • Prison officials have a legal duty under the 8th Subpoena of the Constitution to refrain from using excessive force and to protect prisoners from assault by other prisoners.
  • Officers may non use strength maliciously or sadistically with intent to cause harm, merely they may use force in proficient faith efforts to keep order.
  •  Prison officials may be violating the Eighth Subpoena if they knew almost a risk of set on by other prisoners but failed to respond, or if prison conditions or practices create an unreasonable hazard of assail (for example, not having plenty officers on the unit of measurement, non having cell doors that lock properly, etc.).

What to practice if you lot believe that your rights accept been violated

  • If you accept been assaulted by an officer or boyfriend prisoner, y'all should file a grievance, and appeal information technology through all available levels of appeal.  Note that there are usually strict time limits for filing a grievance, and then yous should do then as before long equally possible.
  • If you lot believe you are in immediate danger of assault, you should tell a staff member you trust (mental health worker, teacher, etc.).

Additional resources

  • Prison Legal News:  https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/
  • Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual:  http://jlm.law.columbia.edu/files/2017/05/36.-Ch.-24.pdf

I'g facing religious discrimination in prison house

Your rights

  • Federal constabulary provides special protections for prisoners' religious exercise. If a prison policy, rule, or practice significantly impedes your ability to practice your sincerely held religious behavior, prison officials must show that applying the rule to you lot furthers an extremely of import (in legal terms, "compelling") governmental involvement (eastward.thousand., prisoners' prophylactic or health) and that there is no other reasonable way to go about protecting that interest. If prison officials cannot show this, they must provide a religious adaptation to enable y'all to practice your organized religion.
  • Depending on your particular circumstances, prison officials may be required to provide you with a religious diet (due east.chiliad., halal or kosher meals), worship services, and admission to clergy. They as well may be required to permit yous to have religious texts, wear certain religious clothing, headwear, and jewelry, and maintain religious grooming practices (east.g., wearing a bristles or long pilus).
  • Prison officials cannot impose religious beliefs or practices on you lot. They cannot punish you for declining to take office in religious activities or events that include religious elements. Prison house officials cannot requite special preference to members of 1 faith, or treat prisoners of some religions less favorably than those of others.

What to exercise if your rights are violated

  • Yous can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice's Special Litigation Division.
  • You can contact the ACLU in your land for more data.

Additional resources

  • ACLU – Religious Freedom in Prison
  • Department of Justice – Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Deed (RLUIPA)
  • Prison Legal News:  www.prisonlegalnews.org
  • Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual:  http://jlm.law.columbia.edu/files/2017/05/39.-Ch.-27.pdf

I'k experiencing bigotry or corruption in prison house because I'm transgender

Your rights

  • If y'all notify prison house officials that you lot are transgender, and/or accept been threatened, officials are legally required to human action to protect you. When you lot enter prison house, inform staff yous are transgender or believe you are at take chances — both verbally and in writing.
  • The federal Prison house Rape Elimination Act (PREA) requires prisons and jails to make individualized housing placements for all transgender and intersex prisoners, including when assigning them to male person or female facilities. A transgender or intersex prisoner'southward ain views with respect to their ain safety must be given serious consideration when making these determinations.
  • Many correctional facilities business firm transgender prisoners in solitary confinement to protect them from violence. PREA says yous cannot be segregated against your will for more than 30 days and if you are in protective custody yous must have access to programs, privileges, didactics and work opportunities to the extent possible.
  • Prison and jail staff must evaluate you for gender dysphoria inside a reasonable time if y'all request it. Medical treatment for prisoners diagnosed with gender dysphoria should be delivered according to accepted medical standards.
  • Blanket bans on specific types of treatments, such as a ban on hormone therapy or gender confirmation surgery, are unconstitutional.
  • Staff should generally let you gender-appropriate clothing and grooming supplies, and allow you to nowadays yourself consistent with your gender identity, or they may be in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
  • Strip searches must exist conducted professionally and respectfully. A strip search conducted in full view of other prisoners and staff may violate your privacy rights. If in that location is no emergency, male staff should not strip-search women (including transgender women) and vice versa. Some jails have policies allowing transgender prisoners to choose the gender of the staff to search them.
  • Staff cannot comport strip and pat-down searches solely to assess your genitals.  Staff must be trained to conduct searches of transgender and intersex prisoners in a professional and respectful manner, and in the to the lowest degree intrusive manner possible, consistent with security needs.
  • If you request a private shower, PREA requires that officials grant yous admission.

What to do if you lot believe your rights might be violated

  • Study your concerns or whatsoever specific threats to your rubber to staff in writing, and also send a re-create to the inspector full general, the PREA coordinator for the agency with custody over you, and someone outside whom you trust.
  • If you are assaulted, file a grievance as soon equally possible, though cases of sexual set on may have more than flexible time limits on reporting or may have special reporting processes.
  • Prisoners who want to file a federal lawsuit about events in jail or prison house must showtime complete the internal appeals process. This means that you demand to know the rules of whatsoever appeals (or "grievance") process in your facility, including time limits on filing an entreatment afterwards something happens. In most prisons or jails, you will accept to file a written complaint on a form that is provided.
  • If staff refuse to evaluate you for gender dysphoria or fail to provide you with care, file a grievance and appeal through all levels.
  • If you were receiving hormones from a doctor prior to incarceration, have your medical records sent to the medical or health manager at your facility.
  • If you are placed in protective segregation and exercise non want to be there, file a grievance and all appeals nearly your placement. You lot should as well appeal anything that seems unfair about your placement, such every bit non being able to participate in a hearing, not being told why y'all were moved to segregation, not existence able to participate in programming or obtain a chore, or not being told when y'all can become out.
  • If your placement is based on so-called rubber concerns and you lot would experience safer in a women'due south facility (equally a transgender woman), request such a transfer and file appeals if you do not get i.
  • If yous are asked to strip down in front of other prisoners and you do not feel comfortable, politely ask to exist moved to a separate area.
  • If you cannot use a private shower, ask to shower at a unlike time from other prisoners or in a private area (as the PREA standards crave).
  • If you do non desire to be searched past a staff fellow member of a particular sexual activity, politely ask for a different staff member to search you. In some prisons or jails, you lot may also be able to go a full general society that says y'all should but be searched by women (if you are a transgender woman).
  • Ask for your facility's official policies related to your circumstances. Sometimes yous tin can detect these policies in the prison house library.

Additional resource

Black and Pink
614 Columbia Rd.
Dorchester, MA 02125
(617) 519-4387
world wide web.blackandpink.org

Only Detention International
3325 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 340
Los Angeles, CA 90010
(213) 384-1400
1900 50 St. NW, Suite 601
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 506-3333
world wide web.justdetention.org

National Center for Lesbian Rights
870 Market St., Suite 370
San Francisco, CA 94102
1-800-528-6257
www.nclrights.org

National Center for Transgender Equality
1325 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 903-0112
www.transequality.org

I'g pregnant and in prison

Your rights

  • You have the right to an ballgame if you desire ane, and to refuse an abortion if yous do not want 1.
  • You accept the right to prenatal and other medical care for your pregnancy and postpartum care.
  • Yous cannot be forced to pay before y'all can get the medical care you need.
  • You lot may have the right not to be shackled: many states have laws or policies that prohibit or limit the use of shackles on prisoners who are pregnant, are in labor, or have recently given nascence.  Some courts take also said that shackling is unconstitutional.  The ACLU's anti-shackling conference paper provides more detailed data.
  • Y'all have the right to refuse sterilization or other unwanted birth control after your pregnancy.

What to do if you lot think your rights have been violated

  • If y'all are non getting the medical intendance you need, ask other medical or other staff to help y'all.
  • Document everything that happens. Put your request for an abortion or other medical care in writing and keep a copy. Also, go on a list of the people who you've spoken to or contacted and write down what they say and the dates and times you spoke to them.
  • In add-on to your asking for medical intendance, you should likewise file a grievance (an official complaint) if your medical needs are non met. If your grievance is denied or rejected, file an appeal and pay attention to all the rules and deadlines of the grievance organisation, which are normally written in the inmate handbook.

Additional resources

  • If the prison isn't providing you the medical care y'all need, contact your own lawyer, a prisoner legal services system (if one exists in your state), NARAL, Planned Parenthood, your local ACLU affiliate, or the National Prison Project of the ACLU.

I'thou in prison and have a disability

Examples of discrimination against people in prison house with disabilities

  • Exclusion from facilities, programs, and services that are accessible to other prisoners.
  • Not providing sign linguistic communication interpreters for a deaf prisoner at disciplinary hearings, classification decisions, medical appointments,, and educational and vocational programs.
  • Failure to provide medical devices such as wheelchairs and canes to disabled prisoners.
  • Placement in segregation or solitary confinement due to perceived vulnerability or the unavailability of attainable cells in general population.

Your rights

  • Prisoners with disabilities are protected under sections of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Human action of 1973. In the prison and jail context, the Rehabilitation Act applies to facilities run past federal agencies (such as the Agency of Prisons) and to any state or local agency that receives federal funding. The ADA regulates facilities run by country and local agencies, regardless of whether they receive federal funding.
  • Yous are entitled to an equal opportunity to participate in programs and services for which you are qualified.
  • Yous are entitled to be housed at your correct security level, and in a prison cell with the accessible elements necessary for condom, advisable housing.
  • Y'all are entitled to reasonable modifications to policies and procedures.
  • Yous are entitled to every bit effective communication including any necessary auxiliary aids and services such equally sign language interpreters, captioning, videophones, readers, Braille, and audio recordings.
  • Prison officials are not required to provide accommodations that impose undue financial and administrative burdens or require a fundamental amending in the nature of the program.
  • Prison officials are also immune to discriminate if the disabled prisoner'southward participation would pose significant safety risks or a direct threat to the health or prophylactic of others that cannot exist mitigated through reasonable modifications.

What to do if yous believe your rights have been violated

  • File a formal grievance through your facility's grievance process and entreatment all levels available. If your facility has an ADA Coordinator you may also contact that person and ask him/her to help you with an adaptation for your inability.
  • You or your chaser can file a lawsuit explaining how your rights have been violated under the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, or both. You must complete any available grievance procedure and all appeals earlier filing a lawsuit in federal court.
  • To bring a lawsuit under these laws, disabled prisoners must prove: (1) that they are disabled inside the meaning of the statutes, (2) that they are "qualified" to participate in the program, and (three) that they are excluded from, are not allowed to benefit from, or have been subjected to bigotry in the program considering of their disability. Nether the Rehabilitation Human action, prisoners must also show that the prison officials or the governmental agency named as defendants receive federal funding.
  • Depending on the situation, disabled prisoners may file claims for relief under the Eighth Subpoena, which prohibits cruel or unusual punishment, in addition to or instead of the ADA or Rehabilitation Act.
  • The laws of some states may provide dissimilar or greater legal rights than the federal laws. Disabled prisoners should investigate this possibility earlier bringing suit.

Additional resources

  • Every state and U.Due south. territory has a federally mandated Protection and Advancement (P&A) arrangement that works to provide assistance and legal services to individuals with disabilities.  Some of these organizations also work with incarcerated individuals.  For a consummate listing of all these organizations by land click here: https://www.ndrn.org/ndrn-member-agencies.html

I want to receive publications in the postal service in prison

Your rights

  • Prisoners more often than not have the right to receive books, magazines, and newspapers by postal service, subject to the restrictions described below.
  • Prison regime tin generally decide to censor a publication for reasonable goals related to prison safety or security, only cannot reject publications because they disagree with their political viewpoint or for other arbitrary reasons.
  • Prisons cannot discriminate against religious publications by arbitrarily subjecting them to rules that exercise non apply to not-religious publications.
  • Prisons and jails may ban material that describes how to build weapons, instructs how to escape, or instructs how to pause the constabulary. They can ban magazines that contain nudity and pornography.
  • Oftentimes prisoners have the right simply to receive softcover books and bound periodicals sent directly from a publisher, bookstore, or other commercial source, just sometimes courts have allowed prisoners to receive clippings and copies of articles from friends, family, or other noncommercial sources.
  • Prison officials cannot prevent your friends and relatives from buying you books and mag subscriptions.
  • Both yous and the sender have the right to exist notified if your incoming publication is being censored or rejected.  Prison officials must requite plenty of a reason for their censorship decision to allow you lot to challenge that conclusion.

What to do if you call back your rights have been violated

  • When you learn that a publication has been rejected, you should always try to check your institution's publication policy. If you believe the policy has been violated, you should file a grievance, and appeal it through all available levels of entreatment. Note that there are usually strict time limits for filing a grievance, so you lot should do then as soon as possible.

Additional resources

  • Prison Legal News
  • Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual

I desire to send and receive postal service in prison

Your rights

  • The Get-go Subpoena of the Constitution entitles prisoners to send and receive mail, but the prison or jail may audit and sometimes censor it to protect security, using appropriate procedures.
  • Prison officials' power to inspect and conscience mail depends on whether the mail service is privileged or not. Officials may open non-privileged mail service, which includes messages from relatives, friends, and businesses, outside your presence. They tin can read this mail service for security or other reasons without likely crusade or a warrant.
  • Incoming or outgoing non-privileged mail may be censored for legitimate security reasons.  Even so, postal service may not be censored simply considering it is critical of prison house officials or because prison officials disagree with its content.
  • Prisons may not ban mail simply because information technology contains material downloaded from the Net. You may not exist punished for posting fabric on the Internet with the assistance of others outside of prison.
  • Clearly marked privileged mail, which includes communications to and from attorneys and legal organizations like the ACLU, gets more than protection. Officials may open up incoming privileged postal service to check it for contraband, just must practice and so in your presence.  They are non allowed to open outgoing privileged mail.  Privileged mail ordinarily cannot be read unless prison officials obtain a warrant allowing them to do and so.
  • If your incoming mail is censored, both you and the sender are entitled to notice.  The notice must explain the reasons for the censorship in enough detail to allow you to claiming information technology.

What to exercise if you recall your rights have been violated

  • If you believe your rights with respect to mail have been violated, y'all should file a grievance, and appeal it through all available levels of entreatment.  Note that there are usually strict time limits for filing a grievance, so yous should practice so as presently as possible.  Y'all should file a new grievance for each incident; y'all accept a better gamble of succeeding in a lawsuit  if you can establish that the prison house's violations of your rights are the upshot of an ongoing policy or do, rather than isolated incidents.

Boosted resources

  • Prison Legal News
  • Jailhouse Lawyer'due south Manual