Outside Reporting

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An inmate at the Lebanon County jail claims the punishment for not cutting his hair violates his First Amendment rights

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February 27, 2020 | Fox 43 | Harri Leigh

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LEBANON, Pa. —

Eric McGill is alone in a cell at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility. He’s been in solitary confinement for more than a year because he won’t cut his dreadlocks. On Feb. 20 McGill filed a civil action against Lebanon County and three administrators of the county jail, claiming they are violating his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

McGill, 27, who was arrested in January 2019 for his alleged role in a shooting that injured four people, wears dreadlocks as part of his Rastafarian religion.

Rastafarians do not cut their hair, following the “Nazarite vow” described in the Old Testament.

”He believes that his hair has spiritual significance. He believes that it connects him with his ancestors, he believes that it gives strength and purity that he needs for the afterlife,” said Matthew Feldman, a lawyer with the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project representing McGill.

The Lebanon County Correctional Facility allows long hair in ponytails, but not dreads. When McGill would not cut his off, he was placed in administrative segregation, also known as solitary confinement. McGill’s lawyers said this punishment is denying his First Amendment right to freedom of religion and Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law.

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Federal commission highlights harms and civil rights violations for women in prison

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February 26, 2020 | Philadelphia Inquirer | Samantha Melamed

When Naomi Blount was sentenced to the State Correctional Institution Muncy in 1982, there were maybe 300 or 400 women there, and she had a cell to herself.

“Then as the years passed by and the population stated growing, that’s when they started doubling us up — and then quadrupling us up," said Blount, a former lifer who received commutation after 37 years and now works for the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons.

What she witnessed firsthand was a 600% increase in the female prison population in Pennsylvania — a trend mirrored in many other parts of the country.

A report from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released Wednesday found that prisons around the country have failed to manage that growth in a way that protects female prisoners and serves their needs.

Despite federal reforms, including the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), “incarcerated women continue to experience physical and psychological safety harms while incarcerated and insufficient satisfaction of their constitutional rights,” the commission noted.

It found that women are subjected to disproportionately harsh punishments in prison, frequently lack access to the same programs and services available to men, and risk alienation from their families or even losing parental rights.

And, the commission concluded, “sexual abuse and rape remain prevalent against women in prison.” It noted that PREA required the establishment of a prison-rape review panel that would hold annual public hearings; the panel has not met since 2014.

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Lebanon Co. inmate spends 400 days in solitary confinement for length of his hair

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LEBANON COUNTY, Pa. — A Lebanon County inmate has spent more than 400 days in solitary confinement, not for bad behavior, but because of the length of his hair.Now, the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project has filed a motion on his behalf to have him released back into general population.“He is in his cell 23 hours a day or more, five days a week. He is allowed outside for up to an hour of recreation that can take place between midnight to 2 a.m.,” said Alexandra Morgan-Kurtz, managing attorney for the PA Institutional Law Project.This timeframe is the only time his attorney said he can make phone calls.

“So, it’s really led to a complete cut off between him and his family," Morgan-Kurtz said.

It is all because Eric McGill will not cut his hair.

A motion filed on February 19, 2020, said it is against his Rastafarian beliefs, and that he hasn’t cut his hair for several years.

Since he will not cut his hair, Lebanon County Correctional Facility has reportedly placed McGill in solitary confinement since January 19, 2019.

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Inmate seeks end to solitary over refusal to cut dreadlocks

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February 25, 2020 | Associated Press | Mark Scolforo

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — An inmate awaiting trial in a shooting case wants a federal judge to release him from solitary confinement in a central Pennsylvania county jail, where he has been for more than a year because he refuses to cut dreadlocks that hold religious significance for him.

The hand-written lawsuit filed in October by Eric S. McGill Jr. against three senior administrators at the Lebanon County Correctional Facility shifted gears last week, when a group of lawyers produced an amended complaint that warned McGill’s mental health is deteriorating.

It said McGill, 27, of Lebanon, an adherent of Rastafarianism, suffers anxiety attacks two or three times a week, and they are usually triggered by thoughts of his jail conditions and placement in solitary.

“By keeping Mr. McGill in solitary confinement because he refuses to cut off his dreadlocks, (the) defendants have inhibited his right to free exercise of religion for no legitimate penological purpose,” his lawyers with the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project told the court last week, seeking an order that he be placed in the jail’s general population, as well as damages.

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His hair is sacred. But to get out of solitary confinement, his jailers say he must cut it off.

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February 25, 2020 | PA Post | Joseph Darius Jafaari

A Rastafarian inmate has been in solitary confinement for a year. The jail’s warden said he can get out if he cuts his hair.

The Lebanon County Correctional Facility’s handbook says no inmate can have long hair unless it is worn in a ponytail or a bun. But for many Black inmates, that rule doesn’t apply. Instead, they are placed in solitary confinement if they refuse to cut their hair.

One inmate currently in segregated housing says that policy violates his religious rights. Eric McGill, who is Black, wears his hair in dreadlocks. A practicing Rastafarian, McGill has refused to cut his hair since he was taken into custody more than a year ago. (Rastafarians do not cut their hair, ascribing to a strict reading of the Old Testament that forbids it.)

McGill, 27, reached out to PA Post in January this year, saying he was placed in segregated housing on Jan. 19, 2019, because of his refusal to cut his dreadlocks.

“I’ve haven’t cut them due to my beliefs and way of life,” he said in an online message to PA Post.

Inmates kept in solitary confinement are allowed just five to 20 minutes of time outside their cell per day. McGill is also limited to two hours a day to make phone calls to his family — between midnight and 2 a.m. Not uncommon for people who are in solitary for extended periods of time, McGill has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and anxiety, according to court records.

In an affidavit filed with the court, Robert J. Karnes, the warden of the Lebanon County jail, said inmates who choose to cut off their dreadlocks are able to leave solitary confinement.

Though not mentioned in the handbook directly, dreadlocks and other long hair styles are forbidden, corrections officials say, because inmates can use the hair to hide weapons or contraband.

According to the affidavit Karnes signed, McGill hasn’t committed any other infractions to justify solitary confinement.

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Transgender Pa. prison inmate sues Corrections Dept., claiming they were denied proper healthcare

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February 12, 2020 | Pennsylvania Capital-Star | Elizabeth Hardison

A transgender prisoner at a women’s prison in northwestern Pennsylvania is suing the state Department of Corrections, saying that bureaucratic hurdles, inadequate medical training, and invasions of privacy put them on a path to depression and self-mutilation.

The lawsuit, filed last month in the U.S. District Court for Pennsylvania’s Western District in Pittsburgh, seeks monetary damages and immediate medical care and housing accommodations for the prisoner, who was identified at birth as a woman, but does not identify as male or female now, according to court documents. 

It also names a dozen corrections employees as defendants, including Corrections Secretary John Wetzel and prison psychologists, doctors and staff.

Corrections spokeswoman Susan McNaughton said on Tuesday that the agency does not comment on litigation.

The prisoner, identified in court filings by the pseudonym Sam Doe, is being represented by the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, a statewide legal aid organization that litigates prisoner civil rights claims. 

The attorneys say the prison’s failure to properly administer Doe’s testosterone treatment caused Doe significant anguish and physical harm. That violated Doe’s rights under the eighth amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which outlaws cruel and unusual punishment for prisoners, they said.

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Jury finds Berks County guilty of gender discrimination.

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November 20, 2019 | Reading Eagle | Karen Shuey

The federal trial centered on allegations that women assigned trusty status were treated differently than men who were housed at the Berks County Reentry Center.

A federal jury last week found that Berks County violated the constitutional rights of women assigned trusty status incarcerated at the Berks County Prison by denying them the same access to furloughs as men who hold the same status.

The case centered around a lawsuit filed by former inmates Theresa Victory and Alice Velazquez-Diaz, alleging that women assigned trusty status are treated differently than men who hold the same status and are housed at the Berks County Reentry Center. The action aimed to provide female trusty inmates at the prison the same freedoms and opportunities given to their male counterparts.

At the conclusion of a weeklong trial in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, a jury of eight found that the two women were subjected to discrimination claims under the 14th Amendment. In addition, the jury awarded $2,800 in compensatory damages to Victory, who has since married and changed her name to Theresa Bohning, finding that the discriminatory treatment caused her harm.

Attorney Su Ming Yeh of the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project, which represented the women, applauded the outcome of the trial.

"We are pleased that the jury recognized that Berks County was refusing to provide equal opportunities to incarcerated women in connecting with their families and preparing for reentry back into society," Yeh said in a press release.

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Trans prisoner was pepper-sprayed and says he was invasively searched at Philly’s female jail

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October 23, 2019 | The Philadelphia Inquirer | Pranshu Verma

It started with too many drinks and an argument over who should clean the house. Zack got angry and landed a punch. His boyfriend grabbed a table leg and hit him in the chest. It ended with the cops at their University City apartment and Zack in handcuffs with one big worry.

As a transgender man, he was frightened about being put in a female jail and what the guards might do to him. “I didn’t want to be outed,” he later said.

Zack, who is 34, transitioned in his mid-20s to identify as a man. Now in state prison, he agreed to share his story only if called by his first name.

In November 2016, he was locked up in Riverside Correctional Facility, the city’s only female jail, where, he said, he faced a series of dehumanizing abuses.

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