The regional jail — the holding ground for many Athens offenders — doesn't have any official policies on residential placement for trans-identifying individuals.
When a suspect who identifies as male or female is sent to the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail, correctional facility officials have no problem placing the person behind bars.
When it comes to transgender-identifying individuals, though, it isn’t always so simple, jail Warden Jeremy Tolson said.
The regional jail, which is the holding ground for many Athens offenders, doesn't have any official policies on residential placement for trans-identified inmates, Tolson said, adding that the facility has never housed a person that identified as trans.
Tolson said if the jail were to receive a suspect or offender who identified as trans, the person would probably be placed in administrative segregation, more commonly referred to as solitary confinement.
“They wouldn’t live with either gender, but would receive all the privileges everyone else gets,” Tolson said.
Administrative segregation is usually used for violent or disruptive inmates.
According to a recent survey, 85 percent of LGBTQ-identifying prisoners surveyed reported that they had been held in solitary confinement at one point or another during their sentence. The report, published by Black and Pink, a group advocating for what it considers to be the rightful treatment of LGBTQ-identifying prisoners, also showed that trans-identifying women were most often held in solitary confinement for their safety, either at their request or against their will.
Although the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail doesn't have explicit policies on the matter, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex Policy that outlines housing assignments for individuals who fall under that umbrella term.
According to the policy, LGBTI-identifying individuals’ housing is considered on a case-by-case basis.
When evaluating each case, housing staff officials consider whether the housing assignment for an inmate who is trans or intersex would ensure the inmate’s health and safety and whether the placement would create management or security problems.
The policy also states that inmates should not be placed in a dedicated area based solely on how they identify.
Despite the Southeastern Ohio Regional Jail not having policies in place for trans-identifying offenders, the Ohio University Police Department and the Athens Police Department do.
OUPD adheres to the university's preferred pronouns policy, which was enacted this academic year. That policy allows OU students to state their preferred names and select their preferred pronouns in their OU Student Portal.
Although OUPD takes note of a student’s preferred name and pronoun, legally, the department has to use the person's legal name and gender on police reports, Lt. Tim Ryan said.
“It would be common in the report for the officer to outline what someone prefers to be called,” Ryan said.
APD "reports what the person reports," Chief Tom Pyle said.
Local law enforcement agencies have also taken it upon themselves to educate their officers about interacting with the LGBTQ-identifying students and residents they might encounter on duty. During the summer, OUPD officers attended the Summer Institute for Diversity Training hosted by the university.
“Diversity education in general is important to us,” Ryan said.
Ryan and OUPD Chief Andrew Powers attended the week-long summer training program, where they learned how to include diversity training in day-to-day police operations, Ryan said.
“It was pretty all-inclusive," Ryan said. "The goal was to help people become educated about (diversity)."
The institute would give officers different scenarios they might encounter and had the officers rank their comfort level as low, medium or high for each, Ryan said. He added that the instructor tried to push people out of their comfort zone of what they would normally be used to be talking about.
“It was a lot of interactive learning that took place,” Ryan said.
Pyle attended the Summer Institute for Diversity Training in 2011 and said he learned how to teach his officers about diversity.
“A lot of people ask, ‘When’s the last time you did diversity education,’ " Pyle said. "Well, for us it’s pretty much ongoing.”
Everything APD talks about and trains for relates to how to deal with diverse populations, he said.
“We all stereotype. We all have prejudice,” Pyle said. “It’s what we do with those things that matter.”
@Fair3Julia
Jf311013@ohio.edu
