[Ppnews] The Secret World of Deaf Prisoners

Wed Sep 30 10:43:46 EDT 2009

<http://thecrimereport.org/2009/09/28/the-secret-world-of-deaf-prisoners/>The 
Secret World of Deaf Prisoners

http://thecrimereport.org/2009/09/28/the-secret-world-of-deaf-prisoners/
By James Ridgeway
Monday, September 28th, 2009 9:47 pm

09.29.09sign
SPECIAL REPORT

In the 1970s, an antiwar demonstrator found 
himself at New York City’s Rikers Island jail 
facility for a couple of months on a disorderly 
conduct charge. The demonstrator, who happened to 
be a friend of mine, met a handful of young men 
from the Bronx in his unit who were deaf.

They were having trouble communicating with 
anyone but themselves.  My friend knew a little 
sign language and, after a few conversations, 
discovered they were illiterate. With the idea of 
helping them improve their communication skills, 
he asked prison authorities for permission to 
order books on sign language from the publisher. 
The wardens refused, saying that they did not 
want anyone in that prison using a “language” they could not understand.

Things may have changed a little for the better since then.  But not by much.

I first wrote about the deaf in the late 1960s in 
the New Republic and so I know something of the 
background which is what really informs this 
article. I am engaged in a project for 
<http://www.motherjones.com/>Mother Jones on 
solitary confinement at Angola prison, and in 
doing research came upon an article in the July 
issue of 
<https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/21430_displayArticle.aspx>Prison 
Legal News about widespread violations against 
deaf prisoners. Remembering the people and 
culture I had caught a glimpse of in the 60s, I 
got in touch with the article’s author, McCay 
Vernon. Luckily he remember my earlier writing, 
and promptly agreed to help me.

The letters quoted below are from deaf prisoners 
to different people in he “free world,” who are 
seeking to help them, to advocate their cause. I 
have disguised the advocates, prisoners and 
prisons to keep the inmates from getting 
reprisalsreprisals which they fear on a daily 
basis. You have to remember a deaf person can’t 
hear the chatter among other inmates, can’t hear 
the person sneaking up behind,is unintelligible 
in his cries for help during a rape.

The deaf face a nightmare when they fall into the 
criminal justice system. They live in a world 
apart to begin with; but in prison they are 
thrown into a dread new environment where they 
literally can’t understand the language of either 
their jailers or the other prisoners. When people 
who have never heard a spoken word  try to speak, 
the sounds come out jumbled and weirdleading 
ill-informed jailers to think they are 
obstreperous or crazy. As a consequence, some 
deaf prisoners can end up in solitary.

I discovered numerous examples of abuses and 
violations of the rights of deaf prisoners as 
part of an ongoing  investigative reporting 
project.  But the most troubling discovery I made 
was how little has been done about the problem in 
the criminal justice systemand how little is 
known about it outside prison walls.

No one knows exactly how many deaf prisoners 
there are in the U.S.  Efforts by psychologists 
and other experts to find out have been largely 
unsuccessful. With few exceptionsthe state of 
Texas apparently being oneno one counts the deaf 
or hard of hearing in the prison population.

But according to two researchers, as many as 
one-third of the entire U.S. prison population of 
1.7 million have difficulty hearingwith some of 
them being profoundly deaf.  The researchers, 
<http://www.emporia.edu/parm/Miller.htm>Prof. 
Katrina Miller of Emporia State University in 
Kansas, herself a former corrections officer, and 
<http://www.nda.com/about/advisors.php>McCay 
Vernon, a psychologist whose late wife was deaf 
and who has worked within the prison community 
for years,  believe  it is long past time to seek 
help for this ignored segment of prisoners. 
Almost two-thirds of deaf prisoners, according to 
some studies, are in jail for violent  and often 
sexual offenses committed against children.

A person is hard of hearing if he/she has a 50 
percent loss of hearing in one ear. Prisoners who 
are illiterate as well as deaf are especially 
deprived when they find themselves in the 
criminal justice system.  They seldom have been 
educated beyond second grade  and, as a 
consequence, have trouble reading and writing. 
Because they are deaf and without competent 
interpreters, they can’t go to AA meetings or 
drug counseling or make it through educational programs.

The abuses begin as soon as a deaf prisoner 
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6399/is_7_64/ai_n28964750/>enters 
the criminal justice system and faces accusers in 
court.   Often the hard of hearing and 
deaf  can’t hear the charges against them, don’t 
know what the trial is all about, don’t know why 
the guards are screaming at them, can’t hear 
bells or commands from others. If they are close 
enough to the judge and look hard at him, they 
can read his lips. But, as McCay Vernon points 
out, only 50 percent of spoken sounds can be translated into sign language.

On occasion, deaf persons will be given a court 
interpreter who knows sign language. But this can 
be a doubly frustrating experience:  sign 
language can’t convey the special, often arcane 
lingo used by defense lawyers, prosecutors and 
judges. Most deaf people don’t read lips. The 
idea they can hear normally, or at least hear 
enough to act as if they can hear normally,  is a 
myth of the hearing world, Vernon points out.

Sign language is enriched by mime, 
hand-spelling,  and cued speech (which is a 
combination of signs and lip movement). In 
prisons and jails around the country, there are 
few interpreters who are trained well enough in 
this form of communication. Often other deaf or 
hard-of-hearing prisoners are recruited to help, 
but just as often deaf prisoners are left with 
few resources when they are confronted  with 
pitfalls and crises that are tragically common in today’s prison system.

One deaf prisoner wrote, for example, that when 
he sought help after a prison rape,  the guards 
laughed at him.  A hard-of-hearing inmate who 
requested a pair of headphones to listen to the 
radio was turned down by the warden, who said he 
had not filled out the papers correctly. A 
request for  a vibrating alarm clock got a similar rejection.

When deaf inmates want to make a phone call 
using  TTDa method of typing out messagesthe 
prison insists two guards must be in the 
room.  To make matters worse, the deaf are 
restricted to the same amount of phone time as 
hearing prisoners, though it takes twice the time to type out the messages.

Such anecdotes illustrate that deaf prisoners are 
faced daily with violations of the Americans with 
Disabilities Act, which mandates equal treatment 
for deaf and other disabled persons. There is 
even a provision under the Act to pay 
attorneys<http://www.signlanguageinterpreters.com/blog/14-attorneys-responsibilities> 
additional sums to bring cases to correct 
inequities suffered by deaf inmatesa provision 
which, like other parts of the act, is honored mostly in the breach.

A twitter for these people isn’t just a vehicle 
for social networking, but a lifesaving device to 
communicate with the hearing world.

Complicating this situation, is the fact that the 
deaf community in general rarely goes to bat for 
peers who are in prison.  As the mother of one 
deaf son, told me, “it makes them look bad.” Thus 
deaf prisoners are subject to a double 
isolationfrom the prison community and from the 
larger community of their peers.

In a letter to a friend,one deaf prisoner wrote 
the following: ”I have been lowered to nothing 
more than a beggar in order to stand up for 
something. I believe the deaf have a right too. 
But I tell you this
there is no help for us 
here
I am almost at the end of my rope and 
believe that before I submit this body to any 
form of sexual act in order to get legal work 
done, I will take my own life. There is no help 
for us here
Many nights I have stayed awake 
contemplating the end and only my fear in the 
Lord Jesus in not accepting me in heaven has kept me from that act.”

Rape is a major fear, he went on. “Many many 
times deaf people raped and beat and no help from 
the officers. Hearing people steal our 
things
when we try to talk to officers, they just 
laugh. So hard for us. Many, many times I just 
want to die but have Jesus in [my] heart
Now one 
day at a time. Pray every day to help other deaf.”

This letter is signed with the drawing of a 
small, round smiling face and the words, “Deaf and proud.”

<http://www.motherjones.com/authors/james-ridgeway>James 
Ridgeway is senior Washington correspondent for Mother Jones.

NOTE:  The names of prisoners and the 
correctional institutions mentioned in this 
article have been omitted because of the inmates’s fears of retaliation.