The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department just settled a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of hundreds of LGBTQ inmates who say they were manhandled, mistreated, and unfairly held in isolation inside the county’s jails.
Over the course of six years, nearly 600 LGBTQ inmates were forced against their wills into what law enforcement officials nicknamed the “Alternative Lifestyle Tank.”
According to the settlement, the prisoners were confined to their cells for 23 hours a day. They were given just one free hour per day to shower, make phone calls, or watch television. The rest of their time was spent in total isolation.
They were also denied access to job training, drug rehabilitation, education, religious, or community re-entry programming.
All this, the jail insisted, was done for the inmates’ own safety.
“Everybody else, all the non-gay people, they could do the things they wanted to do,” Lynn Price, a transgender woman represented in the lawsuit, tells the San Bernardino Sun. “But us, there was nothing we could do.”
Related: Guards ignored gay prisoner’s cries for help as he was brutally raped and beaten
The inmates were also beaten and subjected to verbal abuse by guards and other prisoners.
Think Progress reports:
This isn’t an isolated incident. Around the country, transgender people are often forced into solitary confinement for months or years at a time. While solitary confinement is often a punishment for inmates, trans people wind up there not because of their own actions but under the pretense that it’s for their own protection.
In the settlement, which is pending approval from a federal judge, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department has agreed to a $1 million payout. The money will be split among those unfairly held in the “Alternative Lifestyle Tank.”
It has also agreed to offer LGBTQ inmates more housing options and equal access to jail programs. It will also train staff on LGBTQ safety and form a committee specifically dedicated to the safety of LGBTQ prisoners.
Realted: Former inmate recounts the horrors of being turned into a gay sex slave in prison
djmcgamester
This is some messed up sh!t. I wonder if some anti-gays who attempt conversion therapy are behind this in any way.
Sam6969
-The unfair treatment is despicable, particularly in 2018
-$1 million for 600 LGBTQ inmates? It does not seem much for the prejudice (unless most of them stayed very shortly).
Vince
That and the lawyers cut.
Sam6969
Yes, Vince, you are probably right!
Kit McCollum
Some settlement. $1 million divided among 600 former inmates = $1,666.67 per inmate.
uncz1978
This totally unacceptable.
What the hell is going on in CA? This and the secret cop law.
fur_hunter
OK…First I must explain that I am NOT a lover of ANY criminal. I’m all for the jails in the US be like the ones here in Mexico with NO amenities. If you need to use the bathroom, you go in the corner and clean it up yourself. Food is brought by your families or you get $H!T. THAT is why there is so little crime here in Mexico. Now, that said…I believe ALL criminals should be treated like $H!T. Murderers should be shot immediately after being found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt (DNA, videos clips, many reliable witnesses, etc.) But ALL should be treated equally. If some are treated like $H!T…ALL of them should be treated the same way. I’m sick of my tax dollars being used to pamper these F*ckTards who get better health care than I can afford. At around $100,000 a year to upkeep each of these pieces of $H!T, you figure it out. How many deserving kids could you send to college for that kind of money? Get it?
James
One million for 600 hundred people….. not much. And why was there not firings or criminal prosecution of abuses. Or did I miss something.