Larn more than here about your right to be protected confronting discrimination and abuse in prison and what to practice if your rights are violated. The law is always evolving. If you have access to a prison police library, it is a good idea to enquiry new developments.

I experienced assault or excessive strength in prison

Your rights

  • Prison house officials accept a legal duty under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from using excessive forcefulness and to protect prisoners from assault by other prisoners.
  • Officers may not apply strength maliciously or sadistically with intent to cause harm, but they may use force in good faith efforts to keep club.
  •  Prison house officials may exist violating the 8th Amendment if they knew virtually a hazard of set on by other prisoners just failed to respond, or if prison house atmospheric condition or practices create an unreasonable hazard of assault (for example, not having enough officers on the unit, not having cell doors that lock properly, etc.).

What to do if yous believe that your rights take been violated

  • If you have been assaulted by an officeholder or fellow prisoner, you should file a grievance, and appeal it through all available levels of entreatment.  Notation that there are ordinarily strict time limits for filing a grievance, and then you should do and then as presently as possible.
  • If y'all believe you are in firsthand danger of assault, y'all should tell a staff member you trust (mental health worker, teacher, etc.).

Additional resources

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

I'thousand facing religious bigotry in prison

Your rights

  • Federal police force provides special protections for prisoners' religious exercise. If a prison policy, rule, or practise significantly impedes your ability to practice your sincerely held religious beliefs, prison officials must prove that applying the dominion to y'all furthers an extremely of import (in legal terms, "compelling") governmental interest (e.one thousand., prisoners' prophylactic or health) and that there is no other reasonable mode to become about protecting that interest. If prison officials cannot evidence this, they must provide a religious accommodation to enable you to practice your faith.
  • Depending on your particular circumstances, prison officials may be required to provide yous with a religious diet (e.g., halal or kosher meals), worship services, and admission to clergy. They also may be required to let you to take religious texts, wear certain religious clothing, headwear, and jewelry, and maintain religious preparation practices (e.g., wearing a bristles or long hair).
  • Prison officials cannot impose religious beliefs or practices on you. They cannot punish you for declining to take part in religious activities or events that include religious elements. Prison officials cannot give special preference to members of one faith, or treat prisoners of some religions less favorably than those of others.

What to exercise if your rights are violated

  • You can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice'southward Special Litigation Segmentation.
  • Y'all can contact the ACLU in your land for more than information.

Additional resources

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

I'm experiencing discrimination or abuse in prison house considering I'thousand transgender

Your rights

  • If y'all notify prison officials that you are transgender, and/or have been threatened, officials are legally required to deed to protect y'all. When you enter prison house, inform staff you are transgender or believe yous are at risk — 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 or female facilities. A transgender or intersex prisoner's own views with respect to their ain safety must be given serious consideration when making these determinations.
  • Many correctional facilities house transgender prisoners in solitary solitude to protect them from violence. PREA says you cannot be segregated confronting your volition for more than 30 days and if you are in protective custody you must accept admission to programs, privileges, education and piece of work opportunities to the extent possible.
  • Prison house and jail staff must evaluate you for gender dysphoria within a reasonable time if you asking it. Medical handling 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 allow yous gender-advisable clothing and grooming supplies, and allow y'all to present yourself consistent with your gender identity, or they may be in violation of the 8th Amendment.
  • Strip searches must be conducted professionally and respectfully. A strip search conducted in full view of other prisoners and staff may violate your privacy rights. If there is no emergency, male staff should non 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 bear strip and pat-down searches solely to appraise your genitals.  Staff must exist trained to bear searches of transgender and intersex prisoners in a professional and respectful manner, and in the least intrusive manner possible, consistent with security needs.
  • If you request a private shower, PREA requires that officials grant you admission.

What to practise if you believe your rights might be violated

  • Report your concerns or any specific threats to your condom to staff in writing, and also send a copy to the inspector general, the PREA coordinator for the bureau with custody over you, and someone outside whom you trust.
  • If you are assaulted, file a grievance as shortly as possible, though cases of sexual assault may accept more than flexible time limits on reporting or may accept special reporting processes.
  • Prisoners who want to file a federal lawsuit well-nigh events in jail or prison house must first complete the internal appeals process. This ways that you need to know the rules of any appeals (or "grievance") process in your facility, including time limits on filing an appeal after something happens. In most prisons or jails, you will take 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 md prior to incarceration, take your medical records sent to the medical or wellness manager at your facility.
  • If yous are placed in protective segregation and exercise non desire to exist there, file a grievance and all appeals about your placement. You should also entreatment annihilation that seems unfair about your placement, such as not being able to participate in a hearing, not existence told why you were moved to segregation, not beingness able to participate in programming or obtain a job, or not existence told when you lot can exit.
  • If your placement is based on then-called prophylactic concerns and yous would experience safer in a women'south facility (equally a transgender adult female), request such a transfer and file appeals if you lot practice not become i.
  • If you are asked to strip downwards in front of other prisoners and you practice non feel comfy, politely ask to be moved to a dissever area.
  • If you cannot use a private shower, ask to shower at a different time from other prisoners or in a private expanse (as the PREA standards crave).
  • If you lot do not want to exist searched past a staff fellow member of a particular sex, politely ask for a different staff member to search you. In some prisons or jails, you may likewise exist able to get a general order that says you should only be searched by women (if you are a transgender woman).
  • Inquire for your facility's official policies related to your circumstances. Sometimes you can discover these policies in the prison house library.

Additional resources

Black and Pinkish
614 Columbia Rd.
Dorchester, MA 02125
(617) 519-4387
www.blackandpink.org

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

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

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

I'm pregnant and in prison

Your rights

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

What to do if you remember your rights accept been violated

  • If you are not getting the medical intendance you need, ask other medical or other staff to help you lot.
  • Certificate everything that happens. Put your asking for an abortion or other medical intendance in writing and keep a copy. Also, proceed a list of the people who you lot'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 request for medical care, y'all should also file a grievance (an official complaint) if your medical needs are non met. If your grievance is denied or rejected, file an entreatment and pay attention to all the rules and deadlines of the grievance organization, which are normally written in the inmate handbook.

Additional resources

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

I'm in prison and accept a disability

Examples of discrimination against people in prison with disabilities

  • Exclusion from facilities, programs, and services that are attainable to other prisoners.
  • Not providing sign language interpreters for a deaf prisoner at disciplinary hearings, classification decisions, medical appointments,, and educational and vocational programs.
  • Failure to provide medical devices such every bit 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 Human activity and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In the prison house and jail context, the Rehabilitation Act applies to facilities run by federal agencies (such every bit the Bureau of Prisons) and to any country or local bureau that receives federal funding. The ADA regulates facilities run past state and local agencies, regardless of whether they receive federal funding.
  • You are entitled to an equal opportunity to participate in programs and services for which you are qualified.
  • You lot are entitled to be housed at your correct security level, and in a cell with the attainable elements necessary for safety, appropriate housing.
  • Y'all are entitled to reasonable modifications to policies and procedures.
  • You lot are entitled to equally effective advice including any necessary auxiliary aids and services such as 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 alteration in the nature of the plan.
  • Prison house officials are likewise allowed to discriminate if the disabled prisoner's participation would pose significant prophylactic risks or a straight threat to the health or condom of others that cannot be mitigated through reasonable modifications.

What to exercise if you believe your rights take been violated

  • File a formal grievance through your facility's grievance process and entreatment all levels available. If your facility has an ADA Coordinator yous may also contact that person and inquire him/her to assist yous with an accommodation for your disability.
  • You or your attorney can file a lawsuit explaining how your rights have been violated under the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, or both. You must complete whatsoever available grievance process and all appeals earlier filing a lawsuit in federal court.
  • To bring a lawsuit under these laws, disabled prisoners must prove: (i) that they are disabled within the pregnant of the statutes, (2) that they are "qualified" to participate in the program, and (iii) that they are excluded from, are non allowed to benefit from, or have been subjected to discrimination in the program because of their disability. Under the Rehabilitation Human action, prisoners must too bear witness that the prison officials or the governmental agency named equally defendants receive federal funding.
  • Depending on the situation, disabled prisoners may file claims for relief under the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel or unusual punishment, in addition to or instead of the ADA or Rehabilitation Deed.
  • The laws of some states may provide dissimilar or greater legal rights than the federal laws. Disabled prisoners should investigate this possibility before bringing conform.

Additional resources

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

I want to receive publications in the mail in prison

Your rights

  • Prisoners generally take the right to receive books, magazines, and newspapers by mail, subject to the restrictions described below.
  • Prison house government can generally decide to conscience a publication for reasonable goals related to prison safety or security, merely cannot turn down 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 practice not 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 law. They can ban magazines that contain nudity and pornography.
  • Often prisoners have the right merely to receive softcover books and spring periodicals sent directly from a publisher, bookstore, or other commercial source, but sometimes courts have allowed prisoners to receive clippings and copies of articles from friends, family, or other noncommercial sources.
  • Prison officials cannot forestall your friends and relatives from buying you books and magazine subscriptions.
  • Both you and the sender have the correct to be notified if your incoming publication is being censored or rejected.  Prison officials must give plenty of a reason for their censorship decision to let you to challenge that determination.

What to practice if you think your rights have been violated

  • When you larn that a publication has been rejected, you should e'er try to check your establishment'southward publication policy. If you lot believe the policy has been violated, you should file a grievance, and appeal it through all available levels of appeal. Note that there are normally strict time limits for filing a grievance, then yous should exercise so as soon as possible.

Additional resources

  • Prison house Legal News
  • Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual

I want to send and receive mail in prison

Your rights

  • The First Amendment of the Constitution entitles prisoners to transport and receive mail, but the prison or jail may inspect and sometimes censor it to protect security, using appropriate procedures.
  • Prison house officials' ability to inspect and censor postal service depends on whether the post is privileged or not. Officials may open non-privileged mail, which includes messages from relatives, friends, and businesses, outside your presence. They can read this mail for security or other reasons without probable cause or a warrant.
  • Incoming or outgoing non-privileged mail may exist censored for legitimate security reasons.  Notwithstanding, mail may not be censored only because it is critical of prison officials or because prison officials disagree with its content.
  • Prisons may not ban mail simply because it contains material downloaded from the Internet. You lot may not be punished for posting material on the Net with the help of others outside of prison.
  • Clearly marked privileged mail, which includes communications to and from attorneys and legal organizations similar the ACLU, gets more protection. Officials may open up incoming privileged mail to bank check it for contraband, simply must practice so in your presence.  They are not allowed to open outgoing privileged post.  Privileged mail usually cannot be read unless prison house officials obtain a warrant assuasive them to practice so.
  • If your incoming mail is censored, both you and the sender are entitled to notice.  The find must explain the reasons for the censorship in enough item to let y'all to challenge it.

What to do if you think your rights have been violated

  • If you believe your rights with respect to postal service have been violated, you should file a grievance, and appeal it through all available levels of appeal.  Note that at that place are usually strict time limits for filing a grievance, and so you should exercise then as soon as possible.  You should file a new grievance for each incident; you lot accept a better chance of succeeding in a lawsuit  if you lot can establish that the prison'south violations of your rights are the result of an ongoing policy or practise, rather than isolated incidents.

Additional resources

  • Prison Legal News
  • Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual