The Division of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday launched long-awaited studies about sexual violence in prisons and jails, however omitted information on transgender incarcerated individuals. The 2 studies got here simply days after a memo obtained by Prism revealed the division’s plans to dismantle jail rape protections for transgender and intersex individuals in grownup and youth services throughout the nation.
Within the newest studies on sexual victimization reported by prisoners, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) neglected key demographic information that particulars the identities of these experiencing sexual violence behind bars, together with race, sexual orientation, and age. And whereas the company says it’ll launch that information in a collection of studies someday in 2026, consultants fear that details about trans and intersex individuals received’t be launched.
In accordance with the nameless questionnaires supplied as a part of the survey, launched by the BJS, prisoners have been particularly requested whether or not they’re transgender, which means that such information was collected.
Wanda Bertram, the communications strategist on the Jail Coverage Initiative, instructed Prism that the omission is obvious, contemplating how President Donald Trump’s administration has politicized the remedy of trans individuals behind bars, who face alarmingly excessive charges of sexual violence from jail employees and fellow prisoners alike.
“It’s a part of a shift by BJS beneath Trump to not acquire any extra information about demographics that Trump wish to select to disregard or look away from,” Bertram mentioned. “And it’s principally the federal government selecting to stay its head within the sand a few fairly key side of sexual assault in prisons.”
The DOJ didn’t reply to requests for remark concerning the information.
The 2 studies, about prisons and jails, individually, are the fourth of their variety since 2007 as a part of the Nationwide Inmate Survey (NIS), which attracts on nameless questionnaires supplied to incarcerated individuals. The findings launched Tuesday are the primary beneath the NIS since 2013 — and the primary since requirements beneath the Jail Rape Elimination Act (PREA) went into impact in August 2012.
And whereas this information would ordinarily symbolize a novel probability to review the impacts of concerted efforts to handle sexual violence in detention, consultants like Cynthia Totten, a deputy govt director at Simply Detention Worldwide, say the dearth of knowledge about trans individuals in a post-PREA system is a big hurdle for the group’s work. JDI is a Los Angeles-based advocacy group that works to finish sexual violence in detention.
“Whenever you give an incomplete image, it simply makes it unattainable to try this subsequent step to do the work of guaranteeing that correctional practices are as they need to be and advance the protection of incarcerated of us,” Totten mentioned.
To that finish, the lacking information has significantly far-reaching penalties for the individuals working in and across the felony authorized system, from advocates in nonprofits, counselors at rape disaster facilities, and even corrections officers who use the info to tell detention practices. The dearth of knowledge additionally makes it tougher to problem the Trump administration’s transphobic claims that trans individuals in jail are a risk to these round them, regardless of overwhelming proof on the contrary.
“If we have no idea, and if we can not present that transgender individuals are themselves typically victims of abuse inside prisons, it’s going to be all of the tougher to counter,” Bertram mentioned.
Legal justice consultants and advocates are additionally more and more apprehensive about sturdy information assortment about LGBTQIA+ individuals behind bars, particularly after the DOJ earlier this yr eliminated questions about gender id from the Nationwide Crime Victimization Survey, the Survey of Sexual Victimization, and the Survey of Inmates in Native Jails.
Trans individuals are over 4 instances extra seemingly than cisgender individuals to be the sufferer of violent crime. And information from the DOJ itself exhibits that trans incarcerated individuals face considerably greater charges of sexual violence than others behind bars.
Information launched from the NIS in 2014 confirmed that just about 40% of transgender incarcerated individuals reported a number of incidents of sexual victimization involving one other inmate or facility employees within the 12 months prior. And information from two earlier years of the NIS report detailed related ranges of sexual violence.
A February 2024 report from the Vera Institute of Justice and Black and Pink Nationwide additionally detailed the violence trans prisoners face in state prisons. Out of almost 300 incarcerated trans individuals surveyed, almost one-third mentioned violence from fellow prisoners was the principal motive they felt unsafe. Moreover, greater than half reported being sexually assaulted throughout their jail sentences on the time.
Tuesday’s DOJ studies have been launched following a memo despatched to jail auditors earlier this month that detailed Trump’s plans to roll again requirements beneath PREA aimed toward defending trans and intersex prisoners from sexual violence.
The memo, despatched to PREA auditors licensed by the DOJ, instructed auditors to disregard provisions requiring that trans individuals be screened for danger for sexual violence, that their housing preferences are given critical consideration, that they be allowed to bathe privately, and that worker coaching contains how one can respectfully deal with and talk with LGBTQIA+ prisoners.
Specialists say the results of these rollbacks will seemingly be elevated violence towards trans and intersex individuals, with out the restricted protections they might have had beneath PREA. Trump’s plans to alter the requirements, nonetheless, are nonetheless up within the air till a proper rulemaking course of is full
“We all know there’s nonetheless a significant issue of sexual abuse in detention,” Totten mentioned. However now, “we don’t have the knowledge that may assist us to know something about what’s occurring, what’s behind these numbers,” Totten mentioned, all whereas the Trump administration is “about to tear into the requirements.”
“What we noticed within the memo is that the oversight proper round these protections has already been taken away,” Totten mentioned. “We all know it’s a really harmful state of affairs, not just for trans individuals, however for everyone who’s incarcerated.”
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