For years, the Allegheny County Jail has been subject to criticism for how it houses transgender inmates, and it currently is defending a lawsuit filed over the issue in 2017.
On Thursday, members of the Jail Oversight Board agreed to begin a review of the facility’s classification process for transgender people with an eye toward finding best practices.
“We should do our best to lead the way and fix this,” said board member and Allegheny County Councilperson-at-large Bethany Hallam.
She raised the issue at the monthly meeting, saying that she continues to hear complaints that people are being misgendered during classification.
Warden Orlando Harper said that inmates are initially classified based on whatever law enforcement officers write on the person’s committal paperwork.
Hallam criticized that practice, saying she believes officers sometimes purposely misgender those they are arresting.
According to a policy provided by the county that was revised in 2019, the intake sergeant at the jail is to house a transgender or intersex inmate according to their legal gender identity. That person is to be placed in a single cell until a committee appointed by the warden can make a decision for long-term placement. The committee is required to meet within 72 hours of admission.
The committee considers a medical and mental health assessment of the inmate, information taken at booking and an interview with the person.
“A transgender or intersex inmate’s own views with respect to his or her safety shall be given serious consideration,” the policy said. “They will be given the opportunity to shower separately from other inmates.”
The committee determines if the person should be housed in general population or in a protective custody unit consistent with their gender identity.
Whatever decision is made, the policy said, it must be justified in writing and stored in the inmate’s classification file.
In 2017, Jules Williams, a transgender woman, filed a lawsuit against the county after she claimed she was placed in a male holding cell at the jail, even though she requested protective custody.
Williams, who had been arrested on a theft charge in September 2015, said for four days, she was raped and physically assaulted by the male inmate with whom she shared her cell.
Williams never went through any committee process and did not know it existed.
Her attorney, Alec Wright, said Friday that her federal lawsuit was scheduled for trial earlier this year but was postponed because of the pandemic. It is now about to enter a court-ordered settlement conference.
Wright said that it is far past time to be discussing how to house transgender inmates.
“Now is the time to implement an appropriate classification policy for transgender inmates — the most vulnerable inmates that we have,” he said.
Wright noted that the Department of Justice has said that transgender inmates are nine times more likely to be physically or sexually assaulted than other inmates.
At Thursday’s board meeting, board chair and President Judge Kim Berkeley Clark suggested seeking guidance from the county’s Department of Human Services or the state Department of Corrections.
“It’s a very, very complicated issue,” she said. “It’s an area we could all benefit from some training.
“A lot of work has to be done here in Allegheny County, in the state and nationally.”
She suggested trying to find facilities that can offer best practices.
Hallam agrees with that approach.
“I’m never a fan of reinventing the wheel when there are people out there already doing a good job,” she said.
Anna Kiesnowski is the gender affirming services manager for the Mazzoni Center in Philadelphia, a community health center anchored in LGBTQ care. She said that to ensure transgender people are treated equally at the jail, every person working in the facility — from the warden down — must receive adequate training, and then be held accountable when abuses are discovered.
“It takes time,” she said. “A lot of prisons have policies in place, but are they being followed?”
Trans people should not be singled out, Kiesnowksi said. That means every inmate being booked should be classified under the same rules, she said. It also means that there should not be a separate trans unit, either.
Instead, she continued, trans women should be housed with women. And, Kiesnowksi continued, transgender inmates should not be held in segregation, either, because it could exacerbate previous abuses they may have encountered.
“It’s a huge paradigm shift — especially for prisons and jails — but it can work,” she said.
Hallam hopes to make progress on the issue.
“It seems like there was a lot of buy-in from the other members of the board,” she said.
As part of their review process, Hallam hopes they will seek input from members of the trans community.
“I want to see trans folks brought in to the conversation and have their opinions considered while we work on policy,” she said.
paula.ward is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact paula.ward by email at pward@tribweb.com or via Twitter .
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