Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Prison Conditions

Author: Thomas C. Weiss
Published: 2013/08/04 - Updated: 2025/02/06
Publication Type: Opinion Piece, Editorial
Topic: Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) - Publications List

Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main

Synopsis: Facilities covered by Title II of the ADA are legally required to make services, programs, or activities accessible to people with disabilities.

Why it matters: This article examines the application of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) within correctional facilities, highlighting the legal obligations of these institutions to provide accessible services, programs, and activities to inmates with disabilities. It discusses common complaints from inmates, such as denial of access to disability-related devices and medical services, exclusion from programs, and lack of effective communication for those who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or have low vision. The article also emphasizes the necessity for correctional facilities to accommodate inmates' needs, including providing necessary medical devices and ensuring access to essential areas like libraries, dining halls, and medical facilities. This information is crucial for policymakers, legal professionals, and human rights advocates working to reform prison practices and ensure the humane treatment of incarcerated individuals with disabilities - Disabled World (DW).

Introduction

People with disabilities often face some of the toughest conditions in prisons and jails in America. At the start of the year 2006, state prisons held 1,259,905 inmates in their custody and local jails held 766,010. Including the numbers of people who were either on parole or probation, or who were in federal prisons, the number of people in America's correctional system totaled more than 7 million, a population very worthy of note.

Main Item

As with other facilities that are covered by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), detention and correction facilities are required to make their services, programs, and activities accessible to people with disabilities.

Operations That Must be Accessible Include:

• Jobs
• Education
• Phone calls
• Commissary
• Fingerprinting
• Drug treatment
• Religious services
• Confinement level
• Visitation programs
• Anger management
• Appropriate classification
• Housing and cell assignment
• Medical and mental health services
• Sexual offender treatment programs
• Work release and early release programs
• Initial medical and mental health screening
• Access to toilets, showers, food, and recreation

Each year, the Department receives more than 1,600 complaints from inmates in local and state facilities alleging discrimination on the basis of the disabilities they experience. The, 'Justice Project,' was an initiative created in the year 2004 to investigate and hopefully resolve such complaints. Inmates with disabilities allege a number of ADA violations at local and state correctional and detention facilities. The most common types of complaints involve:

• Denial of access to disability-related devices and medical services
• Denial of access/unequal access to the facility's activities and programs
• Lack of effective communication for inmates who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, or have low vision

Complaints Regarding Access

Several inmate complaints allege a lack of accessible cells, showers, and toilets - as well as sidewalks with steep slopes and steps or floors that prevent inmates with mobility disabilities from accessing essential areas to include libraries, dining halls, or medical facilities. Other inmates with disabilities allege a lack of assistance for those who need assistance with activities of daily living such as showering, toileting, or feeding. Some inmates with disabilities have received no assistance with toileting and have remained soiled for extended periods of time.

Inmates who take medication in order to treat forms of mental illnesses are excluded from participation in drug treatment programs that are required to become eligible for parole. Other inmates with disabilities find themselves excluded from job assignments, something that prevents them from earning good-time credits that would qualify them for early release. In some facilities, inmates with disabilities are housed in the infirmary and are segregated from inmates in the general population, unable to participate in the activities and programs that are available to other inmates. Visitors with disabilities face difficulties as well due to a lack of accessible parking, entrances and visitation areas.

Complaints Concerning Medical Devices and Services

Local and state government agencies are not usually required to provide personal devices for citizens with disabilities. Jails and prisons; however, are required to provide necessary devices such as:

• Canes
• Walkers
• Catheters
• Eyeglasses
• Urine bags
• Wheelchairs
• Hearing aids
• Necessary medications
• Prescribed orthopedic shoes

A failure to provide these devices, equipment, or medications is a frequent complaint made by inmates - especially from inmates who experience forms of psychiatric disabilities. Inmates with diabetes have also complained of an inability to test their blood sugar levels, or to receive an appropriate diet as prescribed by doctors in prisons.

Complaints Regarding Effective Communication

Inmates who experience speech and hearing disabilities have complained about a lack of TTY's and policies that limit the length of their telephone calls, something that denies them an equal opportunity to communicate with family members and friends because TTY's work in a way that takes longer than average phone calls. Inmates with hearing disabilities have been denied sign language interpreters for classification interviews, crucial medical appointments, as well as required classes and treatment programs. They have missed, 'pill call,' medical appointments, or even meals because these events are only announced verbally. A number of inmates with vision disabilities are denied access to tape players and books on tape, or even large print or Braille reading materials - even though they are available at no cost through the Library of Congress.

Actions Taken by the Justice Project

Funding through the Office of Justice Programs finds the Justice Project conducting investigations ranging from individual complaints from an inmate to more comprehensive ADA compliance reviews of all prisons and prison programs in the states. Along with providing relief to large numbers of inmates with disabilities in jails and prisons such as modifications to provide physical access to cells, showers, toilets, dining areas, or adoption of ADA-compliant effective communications policies, the Justice Project has obtained relief for a number of individual inmates. Examples of inmate relief include:

• TTY's for inmates, staff members, and visitors
• Access to work release programs and jobs for inmates with psychiatric disabilities
• A treatment program in an accessible place for an inmate with a mobility disability
• Talking books, magnifiers, tape recorders, and Braille writers for inmates with vision disabilities
• A prosthetic leg for an inmate that allowed him to live in the general population instead of in the infirmary
• Aides to assist an inmate without arms in eating and activities of daily living and to assist an inmate who uses a wheelchair to move around the prison
• Changes in policy allowing an inmate with a disability to be considered for a trustee job, permitting a mother who uses an oxygen tank to visit her inmate son, and allowing a blind inmate to touch his children's faces during visits
• Sign language interpreters to assist a deaf inmate to participate in educational programs, another deaf inmate to participate in a treatment program required for release, and another deaf inmate to participate in required meetings with probation officers

The percentage of people with intellectual disabilities who are found guilty of crimes due to a variety of reason is disproportionate to people without disabilities in the general population. Until the legal system in America finds ways to work with this population, as well as with other populations of people with disabilities, in ways that do not find them incarcerated - the jails and prisons in this nation are going to have to continue working to accommodate inmates with disabilities. A number of people with disabilities in America find themselves behind bars due to a lack of understanding that they are participating in a crime with a criminal they have become involved with.

Author Credentials: Thomas C. Weiss is a researcher and editor for Disabled World. Thomas attended college and university courses earning a Masters, Bachelors and two Associate degrees, as well as pursing Disability Studies. As a CNA Thomas has providing care for people with all forms of disabilities. Explore Thomas' complete biography for comprehensive insights into his background, expertise, and accomplishments.