User:Esatty/sandbox

LGBT/Transgender Sexual Abuse: Current existing article has a short summary at the end of the article discussing "Transgender and Immigrant Issues," but it is a very broad and general description of abuse that happens concerning the LGBT and Transgender community. The last line of the summary is interesting as it almost touches upon the sexual abuse these communities face in detention centers.

I think the article that we read, "'Do You See How Much I’m Suffering Here?”'" is a good site to discuss sexual abuse. One quotation states, "A 2013 investigation by the US Government Accountability Office found that three out of fifteen substantiated incidents of sexual assault in US immigration detention facilities involved transgender women. Two of these cases involved transgender women who were sexually assaulted by male guards while they were housed in solitary confinement" illustrating not only the high proportionality of transgender women that are assaulted but also the systematic corruption that leads to these abusive scenarios; the guards who are supposed to be protecting these women are perpetuating these horrendous conditions. Many of the guards witness sexual assault occurring and do not provide any source of help or rescue.

Found research on the Prison Rape Elimination Act which I think would be a really interesting section to add under the LGBT and transgender subheading. The Prison Rape Elimination Act creates a zero tolerance rule for sexual abuse in prison's and detention centers including assessing a detainee's risk of sexual assault upon entering the center, the opportunity to shower separately, the encouragement to find alternatives to isolation, the ability to make a choice as to the gender of the strip search guard as well as many other protective laws. However, as we have seen in the articles that we have read so far, it is clear that not many of these rules are being enforced in the detention centers and thus I think it is important to have a section that states that this Act is currently in place (passed in 2003) and what it states as the guidelines. Additionally, explaining how these regulations are not being followed is a critical addition to this current article.

The article "How the Prison Rape Elimination Act Helps LGBT Immigrants in Detention" (https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/reports/2014/04/02/86976/how-the-prison-rape-elimination-act-helps-lgbt-immigrants-in-detention/) I think is another good source that can be used to enhance the current article. It lists different statistics of sexual abuse including that 200 reports of abuse against LGBT detainees were found since 2008 as well as many reports of sexual abuse despite PREA being passed in 2003. Additionally, while the Department of Homeland Security published its final standards in 2014, there is no certainty that these standards will be contracted by private institutions.

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ICE%20-%20Progress%20in%20Implementing%202011%20PBNDS%20Standards.pdf Is a report from January 2017 of the implementation of PREA by Homeland Security which is important to cite as well.

Also, https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/10/14873244/ice-immigrant-detention-solitary-trump-corecivic-geo is a more recent article from 2017 that discusses how detainees are still requesting to be placed in isolation to escape abuse due to their sexuality. It even mentions how one detainee was put into isolation after reporting a violation against PREA.