prison fence wilsonville

Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, in Wilsonville, serves as the intake center for male and female prisoners and houses women in low-security and medium-security housing.

(Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian)

Oregon prison officials are housing 11 transgender inmates in the state's lockups with no formal policy on how to do it.

But a four-page draft policy, obtained by The Oregonian, defines the ways in which the Oregon Department of Corrections – facing a lawsuit by one transgender inmate and a tort-claim notice by another – identifies and assesses prisoners who enter the system with genders other than those with which they were born.

"The draft policy speaks to intake procedures and assessments," said Elizabeth A. Craig, who manages the prison system's Government Efficiencies & Communications Office. "Our next step is to work with all superintendents to develop consistent practices relating to transgender inmates."

Staffers at the prison system's intake center, in Wilsonville, interview inmates who "present with nonconforming gender" and match their findings against records kept by counties where they committed their offenses, according to the draft policy.

Craig said the Department of Corrections is ahead of the curve in a collaborative effort with Basic Rights Oregon to ensure the proper management of transgender prisoners.

Basic Rights Oregon is a Portland-based nonprofit that bills itself as the state's chief advocacy, education and political organization dedicated to ending discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Corrections officials and the website for Basic Rights Oregon describe a two-year collaboration by which the nonprofit has helped the state write comprehensive polices to make sure imprisoned transgender people are treated properly in their classification, health care and housing.

Basic Rights Oregon has worked closely with the superintendent at the 1,759-inmate Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, in Wilsonville, to teach more than 200 corrections staffers what the advocacy group calls "transgender 101."

Craig said the training teaches corrections workers what it means to be transgender and how to be respectful of transgender inmates.

The draft policy outlines how corrections staffers are to treat transgender inmates as they enter the prison system, including these:

Corrections staffers are to question inmates about their sex and gender identity only when necessary to make such assignments as housing and health care, and when they deem it necessary for the safety and operation of the prison. "Staff shall question inmates in a private and professional manner to avoid subjecting the inmate to the risk of possible abuse or ridicule," the draft policy states.

When inmates present nonconforming gender during their prison intake processing, they are supposed to be placed in a private holding cell. During intake, security staffers conduct what are called "skin searches" of inmates. If a staffer discovers during a search that an inmate is a different sex than they are, "the security staff member will immediately cease conducting the search."

Inmates identified as having a nonconforming gender during the intake are given two sets of prison scrubs, two T shirts, a sweatshirt, socks and shoes. They are to be given – upon request – the underwear and pajamas of their choosing and, if necessary, two bras.

Prisoners with nonconforming genders are to shower separately from other inmates.

-- Bryan Denson