Legal Rights for Prisoners with Hearing Loss
10% of state prisoners and 6% of federal prisoners have hearing loss while incarcerated. Read more about prisoners rights and advocacy in this article!
If you or someone you know is imprisoned, there are avenues to ensure your communication needs are met. Read on to learn more about your rights and options.
A surprising number of prisoners in state and federal prisons are deaf or hard of hearing. According to the Federal Bureau of Justice, 10% of state prisoners and 6% of federal prisoners have hearing loss while incarcerated.
Common Obstacles
For prisoners with hearing loss, many challenges arise, from communication access to quality medical care. While not all individuals with hearing loss use ASL, many deaf and deaf and hard of hearing prisoners do rely on it for communication in their native language. However, there are sometimes delays in obtaining interpreters.
During the booking process, individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing may be handcuffed in a way that limits their ability to communicate in ASL. Frontal handcuffing is generally preferred over rear restraint.
According to advocacy center HEARD’s DeafInPrison Fact Sheet, deaf prisoners are separated from other deaf as communicating in sign language can be mistakenly seen as gang communication by the correctional officers. There are also issues in understanding verbal commands or auditory alerts within the prison building.
Many prisons still use TTY phones for calls, which is outdated for most deaf and hard of hearing individuals. Texting, FaceTime, or videophones with relay services are mostly preferred, but accessing these options, especially for legal or family calls, can be challenging in most prison settings.
Medical care is another area of struggle. In addition to the common frustrations of obtaining an interpreter for medical appointments, many have limited access to quality hearing health. Some prison health care systems will only provide one hearing aid for bilateral deafness, or ration the number of hearing aid batteries, for example.
Accessing legal aid presents its own hurdles. In addition to having the financial resources to obtain a lawyer or attorney, there is also the task of ensuring that there is an ASL interpreter to facilitate communication.
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Changes Ahead
Recent legal cases nationwide have led to gradual improvements for prisoners with hearing loss. In 2010, Virginia was the first state to introduce videophones for their deaf and hard of hearing prisoners. Since then, at least 14 other states have followed suit in providing videophones, with reform underway in many others.
Minnesota and Michigan have introduced visual communication alert systems, and some advocacy groups continue to push for First Amendment rights for deaf prisoners, including congregational rights and dedicated housing sections.
Legal Rights
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), disabled citizens, including prisoners, have the right to effective communication access and to not be discriminated against or excluded from programs or choices equal to those of their peers. In addition, they are entitled to CART services or ASL interpreters during booking, medical care, programs, etc. Buildings must also make physical accommodations, such as accessible phones, captioned TVs, and visual alert systems.
Advocacy Options
Finding legal representation can be challenging, but there are some non-profit organizations set up to advocate for deaf and hard of hearing prisoners. A few are listed below:
National Disability Rights Network (NDRN)
Based in Washington D.C., this organization advocates for all disabilities nationwide to protect civil and legal rights. They have state-run chapters that provide legal aid to disabled people, your local state chapter may be a resource for accessible legal aid.
Disability Law Centers
Many states also have nonprofit law centers that provide low-cost or pro-Bono legal aid for disabled citizens. They also may have an extensive network of lawyers that specialize in working with deaf or hard of hearing prisoners.
HEARD
This nonprofit organization, Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of the Deaf, is volunteer run and focuses on advocating for the deaf, deaf-blind, and hard of hearing prisoners through law reform, legal aid, and education for community members.
They also maintain a national database of all deaf and hard of hearing prisoners in the system, translate material in ASL, and provide support for re-entry in society such as technology, housing, employment, etc.
ASL-fluent Lawyers
A few states like New York and Minnesota have deaf-friendly law firms that work with deaf and hard of hearing clients or have ASL-fluent lawyers and attorneys on staff. Minnesota boasts of a Deaf-rights attorney who is also a court-certified ASL interpreter. They also offer consultation through video conferencing where distance is an issue.
Conclusion
Being incarcerated as a deaf or hard of hearing individual presents unique challenges, but understanding your rights and working with advocates can help you navigate the system effectively and meet your needs.
Molly, a Deaf mom of two CODAs, lives with her hearing partner of almost 14 years in the scenic Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. Profoundly Deaf since 18 months old, she enjoys writing about the lived Deaf experiences and advocacy. In her free time she reads, and is very slowly working on authoring her first book.
