From Vera Institute of Justice:
Patricia Trimble’s friend Vanna told her that she did not expect to survive another stay in her prison’s administrative segregation unit. The United Nations condemns long-term solitary confinement as torture, yet it is common for U.S. prisons to use punitive solitary confinement cells to isolate transgender women who are incarcerated in men’s prisons, as Trimble and Vanna were (this is common practice for many trans people who are incarcerated with populations that do not match their gender identity).
“The next time I go into administrative segregation, you will probably never see me again,” Vanna told Trimble before Vanna died by suicide, a known risk of solitary confinement. As Transgender Day of Remembrance approaches, Trimble holds her friend in her heart. “This time of year, I think about her and the others that I have lost along the way,” said Trimble, a prison rights activist who works with the prison abolitionist organization Black & Pink. “It hurts so much, and part of the pain comes from the knowledge that it didn’t have to happen.”
The brutal, inhumane prison system across the United States does immeasurable harm to all who are forced to interact with it, but trans people suffer acutely as the result of unchecked physical and sexual violence and frequent denial of gender-affirming mental and physical health care. Overuse of incarceration does not make us safer, and subjecting trans people to horrible trauma hurts their ability to establish healthy lives and break the cycle of incarceration when they return to their communities. Helping to protect trans people from harm in prison and ensuring that they can thrive when they go home is an investment in true public safety. Continue reading >>>
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