The D.C. Jail has changed the way it treats transgender inmates after the D.C. inspector general alerted officials that the agency’s policy may have violated District regulations and increased the risk for assaults.
The changes came less than a year after a female inmate was reportedly placed into the male population for two nights and was allegedly ridiculed by staff when she protested that she was a woman. The improvements will put into writing security measures to help prevent another mix-up.
“Our policy primarily reflects heightened respect and concern for privacy as it relates to inmate gender,” said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Beverly Young.
The changes were made after the inspector general raised questions about the jail’s policy regarding inmate gender identification. The jail determined an inmate’s gender based on his or her genitalia, while District regulations state that “it is a right of transgender individuals to be treated in a manner that is consistent with their identity or expression, rather than according to their presumed or assigned sex or gender.”
The jail will continue to classify inmates based on their genitalia, but D.C. Department of Corrections has created additional security measures and formalized the possibility of placing a transgendered person into protective custody, according to a May 10 memo.
If the staff cannot identify the biological gender of the inmate, the guards must take the person aside for verification of the gender. This must be done privately and in a professional manner to avoid subjecting the inmate to abuse, the memo states.
If the inmate’s sex cannot be determined, the inmate will be escorted to the medical unit for a physical exam. If the staff determines that the inmate would be vulnerable in the general population, the person will be placed in protective custody.
Inmates will be called by their last names without specific identifier such as Mr., Mrs. or Miss, Ma’am or Sir.
Three corrections officers were fired after they failed to recognize that Virginia Grace Soto, 47, was a woman, even after she had been strip-searched and reportedly allowed to shower with male inmates.
Soto had been processed by D.C. police, the courts and U.S. marshals as a man before her arrival to the D.C. Jail.
