Significant Problems That Transgender Face in the Criminal Justice System

The sexual harassment policy should be amended where strategies should be developed in jails and prisons around the country and the custodial agencies relating to the LGBT and the transgender people. The Prison Rape Elimination Act passed in 2003 by the Congress should be strictly applied in cases where rape in prison has occurred mainly when a transgender individual is involved. The role of the act is to detect, prevent and also respond to the cases of rape in prison; they should develop standards to be used to ensure the agencies pay a certain level of attention to the transgender population and protect them from any form of discrimination. The sexual harassment policy should also provide jails and prisons are incentivized to comply with the standards set by the Act (Goldberg, 2012). In cases where the agencies fail to comply with the requirements, they are charged hefty fines for non-compliance. This law will ensure the trans people in prisons are provided with better health care especially the hormones medical therapy and in exceptional cases sex reassignment surgeries.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The transgender population experience a system of oppression known as transphobia. The transgender people face harassment and discrimination that is neither random nor rare; they instead face violence, harassment and discrimination in various contexts throughout their lives. The acts of discrimination are practiced by cisgender; these are the people against the transgender people (Datchi & Ancis). Prestigious institutions also exercise these acts in the society, examples of institutions where transphobia occurs are in the education system, criminal justice system, military and the medical institution. The practices and policies of these institutions are practiced in ways meant to harm, disadvantage or exclude the transgender people from various benefits they have a right to acquire. Therefore, a the sexual harassment policy should be amended where strategies should be developed in jails and prisons around the country and the custodial agencies relating to the LGBT and the transgender people. Transphobia also manifests in state and federal levels as policies and laws that harm, disadvantage or exclude the transgender. Tran's people are disadvantaged where the national laws push for voter identification laws which are an added burden on them especially those legal documents such as birth certificates and identification cards do not reflect their current gender identity.

The Prison Rape Elimination Act passed in 2003 by the Congress should be strictly applied in cases where rape in prison has occurred mainly when a transgender individual is involved. The trans women of color have reported many instances of being assaulted, targeted, harassed and disrespected more than the LGBT and other trans people by the police. They are inappropriately represented primarily with the current New York City laws of stop-and-frisk where the majority of people stopped are the LGBT people, Latina and the people of color. Tran's women of color are in many instances stopped by the police because they are assumed to be sex workers who are considered as racial profiling. Research shows that only 3% of the population has undergone incarceration while 16% of the trans people have been in prison. The figure approximates to 41% of the Latina and Black trans women who suffer imprisonment due to transphobia bias (Knight & Wilson, 2016). The trans women of color also serve long sentences in jail, and the majority have been detained, they also face harassment, sexual and physical assault from the prison staff and their fellow inmates as compared to the other trans people. A high percentage of the trans women of color report many cases of being blocked from accessing their natural hormones medical care by the prison staff and their fellow inmates.

Ways in Which the Courts Have Categorized and Placed Transgendered Inmates in Correctional Settings

The courts have responded positively to the issue of transgender and the criminal justice system, and the victims of discrimination and harassment are winning more cases. They have become more sensitive on matters, and there is now a growing body of significant court decisions that are recognizing the mistreatment of the LGBT and trans people in prison. The courts have also encouraged more advocacy work around the country prisons, and jails and the messages of the victims are becoming more receptive. The advocates of LGBT are increasingly sensitizing the issues that are affecting the most vulnerable members of the trans population. Several court cases are showing how courts respond and categorize transgendered inmates in correctional settings (Rubenstein, Ball & Schacter, 2011). There are several prisoners in the past who have suffered gender identity disorders and also have suffered adverse court decisions contesting or against their treatment while in prison. However, the trend is changing, and there are more successful cases concerning prisoners, and justice is served in courts.

A critical ruling was made in 2018 by the Circuit Court of Appeals which reversed a decision which had been made against an inmate suffering adversely from gender identity disorders. An inmate from Indiana also brought a suit which challenged her conditions and medical care confinement. Before she underwent incarceration, she received her hormone treatment regularly and had also experienced several assaults in prison from her fellow inmates and. She was also denied access to the hormone medical therapy due to her gender identity disorder by the prison management. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the decision that had been made by the U.S. District Court by ruling that the prisoner had earlier stated that she was experiencing a critical medical condition and was entitled to hormone medical therapy to curb her situation. There was also another case where the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of an inmate who was transsexual. The court clearly stated that the prisoner had the right to protection and medical care because transsexualism presented a critical medical condition if the victims were neglected.

The courts are currently categorizing and placing transgender inmates about their biological genitalia. The courts have developed policies that are inconsistency with decisions that the U.S. Bureau of Prisons are following to know how to handle arrests and the incarceration of the inmates who are transgender. Therefore, the transgender offenders who are male biologically with the female gender identities are placed in the male facilities; the same concerns occur for the prisoners realize their transgender identity after incarceration process has taken place. The correctional officers have high chances of abusing transgender inmates. Therefore the Supreme Court considers the violence the transgender inmates' experience. The Supreme Court holds that it is only rightful for a prison official to violate the Eighth Amendments rights of a prisoner when the official is aware of the risk of harm that could be caused towards a prisoner (Rubenstein, Ball & Schacter, 2011). The prison official ignores the risks that could result in the inmate being harmed and create a high burden of proof of an inmate being abused either physically or mentally. The court is also against the prisoners being incarcerated according to their biology at times because this could result to increased prevalence of violence against the transgender inmates and there are many problems they could experience while being incarnated especially sexual assault.

The Particular Needs of the Transgender Inmates

The transgender inmates should have access to proper medical care while in prison because there are high cases if mistreatment and being denied their hormones medical care. Some harms can occur to them when they fail to access medical care which could be higher than the damage that could be caused by physical abuse. They have high risks of suffering from depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and stress disorder and drug abuse problems. When they are denied treatment, these problems increase if they don't get access to hormone therapy, this could result in auto-castration. Many prison systems are however ignorant and refuse the trans people treatment. These problems in most cases arise as a result of a lack of political will to afford proper health care for the transgender people (Banks, 2013). The individuals responsible for opposing provision of appropriate health care for the trans people believe there is a need for a distinction to be made between the appropriateness of the care and if it should be catered for by the state.

The trans people inmates should also have access to sex-reassignment surgery for body modification and improvement of medical conditions. Prisons are entitled to provide appropriate medical assistance; they should have a system where every inmate receives psychological evaluation and the right medication as recommended by a health care provider or a physician. They should introduce new hormone therapy treatment and administer surgery to the inmates who would wish to take a gender reassignment surgery when approved by the prison physicians as necessary. The trans people should be able to get assessments while in prison especially evaluation by the health care professionals who have the right equipment to make GID diagnosis. The prisons should have policies that provide access to the mental health of the trans inmates by ensuring they appoint or hire trained staff in the prisons who can diagnose the inmates. This assessment enables the physicians to provide the right medication when they find a complication in a patient.

Several Misconceptions and Prejudices Against the Transgender Population Within the Criminal Justice System

There are laws developed and applied that will help ensure the trans people in prisons are provided with better health care especially the hormones medical therapy and in exceptional cases sex reassignment surgeries. The transgender population have faced prejudices especially from the criminal justice system where they face discrimination according to their sexual orientation. There is also a common misconception that the trans people are gay; however, being transgender mainly focuses on the gender identity of a person and not their sexual orientation. There is also a misconception that people who tend to cross-dress are transgender; this is not the case because these people are comfortable with their assigned sex. Majority of the trans people face gender dysphoria which is a total disconnect between the sex assigned at birth and the gender an individual identifies him/herself with (Rubenstein, Ball & Schacter, 2011). The trans people are perceived as criminals especially members of racial minority groups; these people are in most cases likely to be harassed and receive hate-motivated violence. The trans people of color are most likely to face double threats of intimidation, sexual assault and both physical and mental abuse as compared to the non-transgender people.

The sexual harassment policy should ensure jails and prisons are incentivized to comply with the standards set by the Act. In cases where the agencies fail to comply with the requirements, they are charged hefty fines for non-compliance. The trans people of color face violence from the police and the public in general, these individuals experience threats and assaults as early as 12 years old as shown by research. At this age, they raped and assaulted physically by the cisgender individuals they consider family and friends. The study by Rebecca Stotzers also showed that the cases of violence occurred across the lifetime of the trans peo...