Month: April 2023

TPI is posting advocacy letters we have written to provide examples of violence against persons in prison, primarily against trans and queer persons in Texas prisons. Personal identifying information has been removed for all incarcerated persons, and named staff or other persons causing harm is removed on a case by case basis.

Content warning: Some of these letters describe threats and incidents of violence that may be disturbing. We will note whether each letter is considered a low, moderate, or high risk for being disturbing. We consider this letter to be moderate risk.

In March 2022, a few days after arriving at a TDCJ’s Estelle Unit, a guard began harassing a trans woman because he felt he needed to force her to look and act like a man. He is reported to have made her go to her cell and told her that she could not come out of the cell as long as she looked like a woman. The subject of the complaint reported other guards also mistreated her, possibly encouraged to do so by the actions of the initial person harassing her. It should also be noted that the guard harassing her gave her a false name; Texas law requires guards to accurately identify themselves when asked.

Although the subject of the abuse did not state specifically, she is a good advocate for her interests and would have tried to address the discrimination through processes set up to do so.

TDCJ responded about 10 weeks later with a vague affirmation that they confirmed the abuses of the guard initially harassing the subject. The response indicates an investigation by the unit was not done properly, meaning staff and administration tried to cover up the incidents. Additional interviews with witnesses appear to have confirmed the mistreatment. It is telling that not until June did administration take “corrective actions” to address the misconduct by the guards.

In the 2021 Texas legislative session, HB 1598 and SB 1980 proposed creating a new independent ombudsman office separate from TDCJ as an oversight agency. TDCJ seems to have responded by creating their own “independent” ombudsman office, which we are directly addressing in this letter, probably to make the argument that an actual independent agency is not needed because they already have a supposedly independent oversight group. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of TPI’s responses from the “independent” ombudsman simply repeat the findings (and excuses) of staff at the units where the incidents occurred. The response to this letter was one of a very few that garnered actual investigation by someone outside the unit staff, who have a vested interest in covering up harm.

TPI is posting advocacy letters we have written to provide examples of violence against persons in prison, primarily against trans and queer persons in Texas prisons. Personal identifying information has been removed for all incarcerated persons, and named staff or other persons causing harm is removed on a case by case basis.

Content warning: Some of these letters describe threats and incidents of violence that may be disturbing. We will note whether each letter is considered a low, moderate, or high risk for being disturbing. We consider this letter to be low risk.

In this complaint, TPI is addressing the improper use of a housing designation called “safekeeping status,” which TDCJ routinely manipulates in various ways and for various purposes. It is sometimes used as a means of denying trans and queer persons access to education and training programs, and it is falsely claimed to be a voluntary designation when in fact safekeeping status can be extremely difficult to obtain or waive. In this case, the subject of the complaint had been trying for about three years to have her safekeeping status removed so she could pursue educational opportunities denied persons in safekeeping housing (TDCJ will disingenuously claim safekeeping status is not what keeps persons from opportunities, it is that the units where where the opportunities are offered do not have safekeeping housing).

The PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) standards require considerable evaluation before placing someone in involuntary segregation, and requires that persons placed in such housing shall have access to all “programs, privileges, education, and work opportunities to the extent possible.” Denial of such access requires significant documentation of why the person requires segregation and justifying the lack of access that accompanies such segregation. TDCJ avoids the required documentation by claiming that safekeeping status is always voluntary. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it is not.

In this case, the National PREA Resource Center auditor, as is common of PREA auditors, was complicit in covering up TDCJ’s noncompliance because the auditor was at the unit while the subject was active seeking removal from safekeeping and being denied. The PREA auditor not only falsely claimed, based on the unconfirmed false information provided by the unit, that no persons were in “involuntary protective custody” at the unit, the PREA auditor went so far as to grade the unit as “exceeds expectations” on compliance with the relevant PREA standard.

TDCJ refused to respond to our complaint other than to falsely state “[w]e have looked into the matter but have not identified any PREA violations.”

It may be worth noting that in the 2021 Texas legislative session, HB 1598 and SB 1980 proposed creating a new independent ombudsman office separate from TDCJ as an oversight agency. TDCJ seems to have responded by creating their own “independent” ombudsman office, which we are directly addressing in this letter, probably to make the argument that an actual independent agency is not needed because they already have a supposedly independent oversight group. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of TPI’s responses from the “independent” ombudsman simply repeat the findings (and excuses) of staff at the units where the incidents occurred.