Stanley-Eric-Captive-Genders-Trans-Embodiment-and-Prison-Industrial-Complex

Transforming Carceral Logics4. Prisons are harmful, violent, and damaging places, especially forqueer, trans, and gender-non-conforming folks.Prisons are violent institutions. People in prison and detention experiencebrutal human rights abuses, including physical assault, psychologicalabuse, rape, harassment, and medical neglect. Aside from these violations,the act of putting people in cages is a form of violence in itself. Suchviolence leads to extremely high rates of self-harm and suicide, both inprison and following release. 35 These problems are neither exceptional noroccasional; violence is endemic to prisons.It is important to bear in mind that prison violence stems largelyfrom the institutional structure of incarceration rather than from somethingsupposedly inherent to prisoners themselves. Against the popularmyth that prisons are filled with violent and dangerous people, the vastmajority of people are held in prison for non-violent crimes, especiallydrug offenses and crimes of poverty. 36 For the small number of peoplewho pose a genuine risk to themselves or others, prisons often make thoserisks worse. In other words, prisons are dangerous not because of who islocked inside, but instead prisons both require and foster violence as partof their punitive function. For this reason, reform efforts may reduce, butcannot ultimately eliminate, prison violence.The high number of deaths in state custody speaks to the devastatingconsequences of imprisonment. Between 1995 and 2007, the Britishprison-monitoring group Inquest documented more than 2,500 deaths inpolice and prison custody. 37 Homicide and suicide rates in Canadian prisonsare nearly eight times the rate found in non-institutional settings. 38In the United States between 2001 and 2006, there were 18,550 adultdeaths in state prisons, 39 and between 2003 and 2005, there were an additional2,002 arrest-related deaths. 40 It is extremely rare for state officialsto be held accountable for these deaths. For example, among the deathsthat Inquest has documented in Britain, not one police or prison officerto date has been held criminally responsible. 41Deaths in custody are symptomatic of the daily violence and harmthat prisoners endure. Queer, trans, and gender-non-conforming peopleare subject to these harms in specific ways:• High risk of assault and abuse: Queer, trans, and gender-non-conformingpeople are subject to widespread sexual assault, abuse,and other gross human rights violations, not only from otherprisoners, but from prison staff as well. 42243