DoJ moves to eliminate sexual abuse protections for LGBTQ+ people in prisons | Trump administration

The US Department of Justice has moved to repeal rules protecting LGBTQ+ people from sexual abuse in prisons; Advocates say the change is “reckless and dangerous” and will lead to increased assaults behind bars.

A. ministry of justice note In an “effective immediate” statement issued Tuesday, jails and prisons will no longer be held accountable for violations of standards aimed at protecting LGBTQ+ people from harassment, abuse and rape. It also instructed inspectors to halt inspections of facilities for compliance with those protections. The justice department is in the process of seeking formal updates to the rules, the statement said.

The directive relates to regulations under the Prison Rape Prevention Act (Prea), a longstanding federal law that says incarcerated people must be screened for risk of sexual assault when authorities place them in housing and that LGBTQ+ status must be taken into account in evaluations.

Prea, passed Passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, it includes standards intended to address the high levels of violence that transgender, gender nonconforming, and queer people face in jails and prisons across the United States. Prea is valid for all penal institutions.

The policy changes are designed to comply with one of Donald Trump’s signature anti-trans executive orders, the memo from Tammie Gregg, principal deputy director of the Office of Justice Assistance, part of the justice department, said. Trump’s “restoration of biological truth” order, issued on the day of his inauguration, called for a ban on housing for transgender women in correctional facilities and required the Federal Bureau of Prisons to stop providing gender-affirming care to incarcerated transgender people.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Gregg’s memo was sent to Prea auditors who monitor compliance with the law and instructed the monitors to ignore LGBTQ+ protections in future audits. Gregg said the justice department is “currently updating” the Prea standards to align with the president’s order.

The affected regulations include policies requiring transgender, intersex and gender nonconforming people to be “screened for risk of victimization,” the statement said. It also affects regulations It is designed to protect LGBTQ+ people from discriminatory pat searches by staff, including rules to ensure trans women can be searched by female officers and regulations to prevent invasive examinations of individuals’ genitals.

Note affects even more regulations about how employees should communicate respectfully with LGBTQ+ people, and about requirements in sexual misconduct investigations to consider whether the perpetrator is motivated by the victim’s LGBTQ+ status.

Linda McFarlane, chief executive of human rights group Just Detention International, said: “Proposed revisions to the Prea standards will lead to increased chaos and violence in jails and prisons, putting staff and incarcerated people in greater danger.” expression. “This will allow rapists to act with impunity. And it’s already creating confusion among prison leaders who have worked for more than a decade to establish common-sense rules to end inmate rape… It’s sickening.”

McFarlane’s group has long trained prison staff on Prea standards and has certified auditors for staff. He said in an interview Friday that the immediate impact is the loss of a critical oversight mechanism and that he hopes agencies will continue to honor Prea.

She added that incarcerated trans people have long struggled with harassment despite the standards in place: “They are already in great danger. I have never met a trans person in custody who has not been sexually harassed or harassed while incarcerated.”

The memo comes even after Trump’s executive order was blocked in court. Some transgender women incarcerated by the Bureau of Prisons earlier this year were transferred from women’s facilities to men’s prisons, but courts later ordered their return. The rulings protected individual plaintiffs, but the majority of transgender people in federal custody continue to be housed in facilities that do not match their gender identity.

Spokespeople for the White House and Bureau of Prisons declined to comment.

Kara Janssen, an attorney at the Bureau of Prisons who represented transgender women in the case this year, condemned the memo. “Not only does this put our customers in an incredibly dangerous situation, but it also puts all of these facilities in an almost impossible situation with the federal government telling them not to comply with their own laws,” he said. “It says you don’t have to be afraid of breaking the law and that you can make these searches as disrespectfully as possible.”

Regardless of any changes to Prea, constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment remain in place, Janssen said, adding: “When people are attacked as a result of these changes, the liability of these facilities arises. That does not go away.”

Shana Knizhnik, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ and HIV project, said the memo would create difficulties for Prea monitors, along with at least one auditor. warning In a statement to NPR, it was stated that the memo would make their job “more confusing and more difficult.”

Knizhnik emphasized that Prea adhered to the law and that institutions must comply, but he was concerned about “the signal this sends to the authorities responsible for ensuring the safety of detainees.” He added: “This gives individuals greater license to target trans, intersex and other LGBTQ+ people in prison settings and ignore their obligations under the law.”

Knizhnik also represented Incarcerated transgender people challenging BOP policies “It is so important for people to know that even though the government denies their existence and tries to endanger them, there are people out there who care about them, affirm them, and want to protect them,” she continued.