Word that gay prison inmates are being placed for extended periods in solitary confinement for reporting as victims of sexual abuse by other prisoners—and in some cases for even showing affection for other gay inmates—has reached Beacon Hill.
At the Massachusetts State House, Senator Julian Cyr, the openly gay legislator from Truro, has filed a bill to “require state and correctional officials to collect voluntarily disclosed data about sexual orientation, gender identity and assignments to restrictive housing,” according to a report filed by State House News Service.
Solitary confinement and other forms of restrictive housing are “meant to be a tool to manage people who are a danger to the general population, but we increasingly are hearing that queer and transgender individuals in the correctional system are being held in restrictive housing in what is essentially being claimed to be their own protection,” Cyr told the State House News Service reporter.
“We have some significant concerns about this. There’s minimal information around how long LGBTQI folks in the correctional system are being held and the bill seeks to close the gap in understanding safety for LGBTQI folks,” he said in the State House News Service report, which went on to say:
“Within the prison system there are several clear pathways for an LGBT person to end up in solitary confinement,” said [Director of Policy for the Boston Chapter of Black and Pink Michael] Cox, who served a six-year sentence, told the Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. “I reported an act of sexual violence and I spent 45 days in solitary confinement. This is both a deterrent to report future acts of violence against me and it has a chilling effect on all other queer people.”
Ben Klein, a senior attorney at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, said studies have found that lesbian, gay and bisexual inmates are at a greater risk for sexual violence in prison than heterosexual inmates. By adopting Cyr’s bill, he said, Massachusetts would be in a better position to identify issues in prisons and address them.
“It is a low-cost, low-administrative burden, first step just to get information,” he said. …
In addition to Cyr … the bill has 22 legislative supporters. Criminal justice reform was a major priority for the Legislature last session and Jesse White, a staff attorney at Prisoners’ Legal Services, said Cyr’s bill “corrects for an oversight in the criminal justice reform act as the criminal justice reform act established data and reporting requirements but failed to include LGBTQI people in those requirements.”
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