Judge finds Maryland prison mistreated transgender inmate
A transgender inmate has won a legal battle against Maryland prison officials in the first successful lawsuit of its kind against a U.S. correctional facility.
In 2014, Sandy Brown, who was serving a five-year sentence for assault, was placed in solitary confinement 24 hours a day for 66 days at Patuxent Institution in Jessup, Maryland. According to court records, Brown went in for a routine mental health screening when the Prison locked her away in solitary confinement. But that wasn’t the only mistreatment she underwent.
Brown says the guards called her an animal, watched her shower, and encouraged her to kill herself.
“They didn’t see me for the human being I am,” Brown, 40, said in a statement on Thursday. “They treated me like a circus act. They gawked, pointed, made fun of me and tried to break my spirit.”
Brown filed the complaint in April, seeking $75,000 in damages suffered through post-traumatic stress disorder. Administrative Law Judge Denise Shaffer ruled in favor of Brown’s claim that prison officials at Patuxent failed to comply with national standards for the protection of inmates from sexual abuse, according to court documents.
Shaffer found that guards subjected Brown to sexual abuse through voyeurism, adding federal guidelines were not followed in her housing and she was denied access to recreational activities, and ruled the prison should establish new transgender inmate policies. Shaffer also ordered the prison to pay Brown $5,000 for denying her recreational activities.
The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services adopted the judge’s ruling earlier this month, requiring prisons to adopt the new transgender policies and training.
Brown’s attorney, Rebecca Earlbeck, says this is the first case in the nation in which a transgender person won a legal battle against prison officials for Prison Rape Elimination Act violations.
PREA was passed in 2003 with the purpose of eliminating sexual harassment and abuse among incarcerated populations through administrative action and by providing funding for research programs, training, and technical assistance to address the issue. It took nearly a decade, however — until May 2012 — for the draft standards for the elimination of prison rape to be finalized.
Even after a decade, PREA is still in the early stages of implementation and impact.
“We believe this case creates a framework for enforcing the national standards that transgender people who are incarcerated in other states and their advocates can follow to help to ensure that others do not have to endure the pain and trauma Ms. Brown experienced,” Earlbeck said.
