Gay, bisexual and transgender inmates in San Bernardino County are denied access to work, recreation and rehabilitative programs because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, a civil rights group alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles.
The complaint, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California against San Bernardino County and its sheriff’s department, alleges that the county’s policy violates the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection to all individuals.
The sheriff’s department had not seen the lawsuit and generally doesn’t comment on pending litigation, spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said.
According to the suit, non-LGBT inmates held at the West Valley Detention Center’s general population area currently have access to various services, including work and rehabilitative programs that allow earned time credits and sentence reductions.
However, gay, bisexual and transgender inmates are housed in the “alternative lifestyle tank,” where they are denied access to those programs, the lawsuit contends. As a result, the ACLU says, inmates who are gay, bisexual and transgender are forced to serve longer sentences than other inmates convicted of the exact same offense.
Further, the civil rights group alleges, gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners are confined to their cells at the Rancho Cucamonga facility for up to 23 hours a day, unlike general population inmates.
“While jail officials have an obligation to keep all inmates safe from harm, they cannot achieve that goal by subjecting individuals who are gay, bisexual and transgender to harsher conditions, or by denying them access to services simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” said Melissa Goodman, director of ACLU/SC’s LGBT, Gender & Reproductive Justice Project.
“Such policies are unconstitutional and unwise,” she said. “Inmates who are provided vocational training and treatment services are more likely to find work, stay clean, and ultimately remain out of the criminal justice system. That’s good for taxpayers and public safety.”
Dan McKibben, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said his requests to participate in the work, vocational and educational programs offered to other inmates were denied because he is gay, as were similar appeals to participate in religious services.
While at the jail, he alleges he was subject to insults and harassment by staff, and was unable to obtain medical treatment for his congestive heart failure and diabetes.
The proposed class-action lawsuit, filed on behalf of 15 current or former inmates, seeks to require San Bernardino County and its sheriff’s department to provide all inmates equal access and treatment to programs, as required by state and federal law.
“For months, we have found case after case of individuals who are gay, bisexual and transgender who are subject to the kind of lock down detention reserved for the most hardened criminals,” said David McLane, an attorney who worked on the case.
“There is no reasonable explanation for this two-tier system of justice that denies some inmates access to the most basic programs in education, work and drug rehabilitation based on little more than their gender identity or sexual orientation,” he said.
“The law does not permit local law enforcement to discriminate or dehumanize an individual simply because they are gay, bisexual and transgender, yet that is what officials have been allowed to do at the West Valley Detention Center. It’s unlawful and must stop.”
— City News Service