Learn more here virtually your correct to be protected against discrimination and abuse in prison and what to practise if your rights are violated. The law is always evolving. If y'all have access to a prison law library, it is a good idea to inquiry new developments.

I experienced assault or excessive strength in prison

Your rights

  • Prison officials accept a legal duty under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from using excessive force and to protect prisoners from attack by other prisoners.
  • Officers may not use strength maliciously or sadistically with intent to cause impairment, simply they may use forcefulness in good organized religion efforts to keep social club.
  •  Prison officials may exist violating the Eighth Subpoena if they knew near a chance of assault past other prisoners simply failed to answer, or if prison house atmospheric condition or practices create an unreasonable risk of assault (for example, not having enough officers on the unit, not having cell doors that lock properly, etc.).

What to do if you believe that your rights have been violated

  • If you lot have been assaulted by an officer or boyfriend prisoner, you lot should file a grievance, and appeal it through all available levels of appeal.  Note that at that place are ordinarily strict time limits for filing a grievance, so you should do so equally soon as possible.
  • If y'all believe you are in immediate danger of assail, yous should tell a staff member you lot trust (mental health worker, teacher, etc.).

Additional resources

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

I'thousand facing religious discrimination in prison

Your rights

  • Federal law provides special protections for prisoners' religious exercise. If a prison policy, rule, or do significantly impedes your ability to practice your sincerely held religious beliefs, prison house officials must show that applying the dominion to you furthers an extremely important (in legal terms, "compelling") governmental interest (e.g., prisoners' safety or wellness) and that there is no other reasonable style to become nearly protecting that interest. If prison officials cannot show 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 you with a religious diet (e.g., halal or kosher meals), worship services, and admission to clergy. They also may exist required to permit you to have religious texts, article of clothing certain religious clothing, headwear, and jewelry, and maintain religious grooming practices (e.g., wearing a beard or long hair).
  • Prison house officials cannot impose religious beliefs or practices on you. They cannot punish you for declining to accept office in religious activities or events that include religious elements. Prison house officials cannot requite special preference to members of one organized religion, or care for prisoners of some religions less favorably than those of others.

What to practice if your rights are violated

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

Additional resources

  • ACLU – Religious Freedom in Prison
  • Section of Justice – Religious Country Apply and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA)
  • Prison Legal News:  www.prisonlegalnews.org
  • Jailhouse Lawyer'due south Transmission:  http://jlm.police.columbia.edu/files/2017/05/39.-Ch.-27.pdf

I'yard experiencing bigotry or abuse in prison because I'm transgender

Your rights

  • If you lot notify prison house officials that you lot are transgender, and/or have been threatened, officials are legally required to act to protect you lot. When you enter prison, inform staff you are transgender or believe you are at gamble — both verbally and in writing.
  • The federal Prison house Rape Elimination Act (PREA) requires prisons and jails to brand 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 safe must be given serious consideration when making these determinations.
  • Many correctional facilities house transgender prisoners in lonely confinement to protect them from violence. PREA says you cannot be segregated against your will for more 30 days and if y'all are in protective custody you must have access to programs, privileges, didactics and work opportunities to the extent possible.
  • Prison and jail staff must evaluate y'all for gender dysphoria within a reasonable time if y'all asking it. Medical handling for prisoners diagnosed with gender dysphoria should be delivered co-ordinate 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 mostly let you gender-appropriate clothing and grooming supplies, and let you to present yourself consistent with your gender identity, or they may be in violation of the Eighth Subpoena.
  • Strip searches must be conducted professionally and respectfully. A strip search conducted in total view of other prisoners and staff may violate your privacy rights. If at that place is no emergency, male staff should non strip-search women (including transgender women) and vice versa. Some jails take policies allowing transgender prisoners to choose the gender of the staff to search them.
  • Staff cannot conduct strip and pat-downward searches solely to appraise your genitals.  Staff must be trained to carry searches of transgender and intersex prisoners in a professional and respectful manner, and in the least intrusive manner possible, consistent with security needs.
  • If yous request a private shower, PREA requires that officials grant you access.

What to exercise if you believe your rights might be violated

  • Report your concerns or any specific threats to your safety to staff in writing, and likewise send a copy to the inspector full general, the PREA coordinator for the bureau with custody over you, and someone outside whom you trust.
  • If you lot are assaulted, file a grievance as before long every bit possible, though cases of sexual assault may accept more 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 must outset consummate the internal appeals process. This means that you need to know the rules of any appeals (or "grievance") procedure in your facility, including time limits on filing an appeal after something happens. In most prisons or jails, you will accept to file a written complaint on a form that is provided.
  • If staff decline to evaluate you for gender dysphoria or neglect 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 managing director at your facility.
  • If you are placed in protective segregation and do not want to be there, file a grievance and all appeals near your placement. Y'all should besides appeal annihilation that seems unfair virtually your placement, such as not existence able to participate in a hearing, not being told why yous were moved to segregation, not being able to participate in programming or obtain a task, or non being told when yous tin go out.
  • If your placement is based on so-called safe concerns and yous would feel safer in a women's facility (as a transgender adult female), request such a transfer and file appeals if you do non get 1.
  • If y'all are asked to strip downwards in front end of other prisoners and you exercise not feel comfortable, politely enquire to be moved to a divide area.
  • If you cannot use a private shower, ask to shower at a different fourth dimension from other prisoners or in a private expanse (as the PREA standards crave).
  • If you do not desire to be searched by a staff member of a detail sexual practice, politely ask for a dissimilar staff member to search you lot. In some prisons or jails, you may also exist able to become a full general order that says you lot should simply be searched past women (if you are a transgender adult female).
  • Ask for your facility'southward official policies related to your circumstances. Sometimes you tin detect these policies in the prison library.

Additional resource

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

Just 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 Middle for Lesbian Rights
870 Market St., Suite 370
San Francisco, CA 94102
i-800-528-6257
www.nclrights.org

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

I'm pregnant and in prison

Your rights

  • You have the right to an abortion if you want i, and to refuse an abortion if y'all practice not want one.
  • You have the right to prenatal and other medical care for your pregnancy and postpartum care.
  • Y'all cannot be forced to pay before you tin get the medical intendance you need.
  • Y'all may take the right non to be shackled: many states take laws or policies that prohibit or limit the use of shackles on prisoners who are significant, are in labor, or take recently given birth.  Some courts have also said that shackling is unconstitutional.  The ACLU's anti-shackling briefing paper provides more detailed information.
  • You accept the right to reject sterilization or other unwanted birth control after your pregnancy.

What to practise if you think your rights take been violated

  • If y'all are not getting the medical care you lot demand, ask other medical or other staff to help you.
  • Document everything that happens. Put your request for an abortion or other medical care in writing and keep a copy. Also, keep a list of the people who you've spoken to or contacted and write downwards what they say and the dates and times you spoke to them.
  • In add-on to your asking for medical intendance, you should too file a grievance (an official complaint) if your medical needs are not met. If your grievance is denied or rejected, file an appeal and pay attending to all the rules and deadlines of the grievance system, which are usually written in the inmate handbook.

Additional resources

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

I'm in prison and accept a inability

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 deafened 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 Human action and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. In the prison house and jail context, the Rehabilitation Human action applies to facilities run by federal agencies (such equally the Bureau of Prisons) and to any state or local agency that receives federal funding. The ADA regulates facilities run past country 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 are entitled to exist housed at your correct security level, and in a cell with the accessible elements necessary for rubber, advisable housing.
  • You are entitled to reasonable modifications to policies and procedures.
  • Y'all are entitled to equally effective advice including whatever necessary auxiliary aids and services such every bit sign language interpreters, captioning, videophones, readers, Braille, and audio recordings.
  • Prison house officials are not required to provide accommodations that impose undue financial and administrative burdens or crave a central alteration in the nature of the program.
  • Prison officials are also allowed to discriminate if the disabled prisoner's participation would pose pregnant prophylactic risks or a direct threat to the wellness or safety of others that cannot exist mitigated through reasonable modifications.

What to do if y'all believe your rights have been violated

  • File a formal grievance through your facility'due south grievance procedure and entreatment all levels bachelor. If your facility has an ADA Coordinator y'all may too contact that person and ask him/her to assistance you 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 any available grievance process and all appeals earlier filing a lawsuit in federal court.
  • To bring a lawsuit under these laws, disabled prisoners must show: (one) that they are disabled within the significant of the statutes, (2) that they are "qualified" to participate in the program, and (3) that they are excluded from, are not allowed to benefit from, or have been subjected to discrimination in the program because of their inability. Nether the Rehabilitation Deed, prisoners must as well evidence 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 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel or unusual penalization, in add-on to or instead of the ADA or Rehabilitation Human action.
  • The laws of some states may provide different or greater legal rights than the federal laws. Disabled prisoners should investigate this possibility before bringing suit.

Additional resources

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

I want to receive publications in the mail in prison

Your rights

  • Prisoners more often than not take the correct to receive books, magazines, and newspapers by postal service, subject to the restrictions described beneath.
  • Prison authorities tin generally decide to conscience a publication for reasonable goals related to prison house safety or security, but cannot reject publications considering 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 not apply to non-religious publications.
  • Prisons and jails may ban material that describes how to build weapons, instructs how to escape, or instructs how to break the law. They can ban magazines that contain nudity and pornography.
  • Often prisoners have the right only to receive softcover books and jump periodicals sent directly from a publisher, bookstore, or other commercial source, but sometimes courts have immune 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 y'all books and magazine subscriptions.
  • Both you and the sender have the right to be notified if your incoming publication is being censored or rejected.  Prison officials must give enough of a reason for their censorship conclusion to allow you to challenge that determination.

What to practice if y'all think your rights take been violated

  • When yous learn that a publication has been rejected, y'all should always effort to check your institution's publication policy. If you believe the policy has been violated, y'all should file a grievance, and entreatment it through all bachelor levels of appeal. Note that in that location are usually strict time limits for filing a grievance, so you should do then every bit before long as possible.

Additional resource

  • Prison Legal News
  • Jailhouse Lawyer'southward Manual

I want to send and receive mail in prison house

Your rights

  • The First Amendment of the Constitution entitles prisoners to transport and receive postal service, merely the prison or jail may audit and sometimes censor it to protect security, using advisable procedures.
  • Prison officials' power to inspect and conscience mail depends on whether the post is privileged or not. Officials may open non-privileged post, which includes letters from relatives, friends, and businesses, outside your presence. They tin read this mail for security or other reasons without probable crusade or a warrant.
  • Incoming or outgoing non-privileged mail may be censored for legitimate security reasons.  Even so, mail may not exist censored simply considering it is disquisitional of prison officials or because prison officials disagree with its content.
  • Prisons may not ban mail simply considering it contains material downloaded from the Internet. You may non exist punished for posting material on the Internet with the help of others exterior of prison house.
  • Clearly marked privileged post, which includes communications to and from attorneys and legal organizations like the ACLU, gets more protection. Officials may open incoming privileged mail service to check it for contraband, but must do so in your presence.  They are non immune to open up outgoing privileged mail.  Privileged mail service ordinarily cannot be read unless prison officials obtain a warrant allowing them to do so.
  • If your incoming mail is censored, both you and the sender are entitled to observe.  The notice must explain the reasons for the censorship in plenty detail to allow you to challenge information technology.

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

  • If y'all 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.  Annotation that there are ordinarily strict fourth dimension limits for filing a grievance, and so you should do so as shortly as possible.  You lot should file a new grievance for each incident; you take a better risk of succeeding in a lawsuit  if you can plant that the prison's violations of your rights are the result of an ongoing policy or practise, rather than isolated incidents.

Additional resources

  • Prison Legal News
  • Jailhouse Lawyer'south Manual