#strikeforjade

Friday 4th Sept, 6pm, University of Auckland General Library B15

[95bFM Radio interview transcript with Jennifer Shields on the 28th August. Thanks to Sophie B for the transcript]

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Anna: Corrections will be apologising to prisoner Jade Follett following revelations she requested a transfer from Rimutaka Prison to a women's facility. Corrections told us on Wednesday they received that request last week, but it's since emerged the request was filed months ago, but went nowhere when a staff member went on leave.

Activist group No Pride in Prisons has raised Follett's plight through protest action and media attention. I speak to Jennifer Shields.

Jen, what's your response to Corrections saying they're offering an apology?

Jennifer [birds chirping in background]: We reckon that that's the absolute minimum they should be doing. They left Jade in a hugely unsafe situation for two months longer than needed because they were incompetent and lost the transfer request; and then when we started our action and the press started putting pressure on them, they simply kept stating that they'd only received it last weekend, which meant that everyone was questioning Jade's integrity. [bird chirping swells] Which we think on top of everything else is completely abhorrent.

Anna: It sounds like there was a breakdown in Corrections processes. Do you accept that as an excuse from the Minister?

Jennifer: No, look, that's what happened, it's definitely not an excuse. It shouldn't have happened in the first place, Jade shouldn't have been in Rimutaka in the first place. Their whole process for this entire thing needs to be updated and changed, and improved.

Anna: Have you been surprised at how swiftly Corrections moved on this once media got involved?

Jennifer: A bit surprised maybe but pleased. After two or three months of silence on OIA requests, we were pleased to see them respond so quickly once the media pressure got put on. But at the same time disappointed, because they could have been responding this whole time.

Anna: Do you think that it is a coincidence that Minister Sam Lotu-Iiga is addressing the threat of violence in this case, at a time when there are almost fresh, daily reports of horrific violence in New Zealand prisons?

Jennifer: Yeah, I think the transfer request was really simple to approve, it just required one person saying yes. We're really pleased that it happened but we think it was quite an easy way for Corrections to do something right when everything else is going wrong.

Anna: Do you think Jade is aware of the attention that her case has garnered over the past few days?

Jennifer: We're not sure. It's really hard to get in touch with her; the letters take a couple of weeks; we've been in touch briefly via her lawyer. All we know is that she's really happy to have been moved.

Anna: Lotu-Iiga said in his letter to Jan Logie, I'll quote it now, "I can assure you that decisions made regarding Jade's placement have been done with her wellbeing and safety being of paramount concern." Do you have confidence in that statement?

Jennifer: I mean yeah, I think  once they made the decision it was because of that, but in the same letter and in every other press statement, and response to our requests, they have the same line they fall back on: that "Corrections is aware and sympathetic to the needs of transgender prisoners, especially around issues of placement and safety." We reckon if that was true, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Anna: Do you think that generally speaking, there's an issue of a mismatch between the law and its practical application, or that this is quite specific to this case?

Jennifer: Yeah, I would agree that in general, if you look at the Human Rights Act, the recommendation from the Human Rights Commission, and if you compare that to Corrections policy, I think there's a massive mismatch, and I think their policy needs to be updated.

Anna: Do you wanna talk about what is coming up for No Pride in Prisons?

Jennifer: Yeah! So next Friday we're holding a public event talking about this issue and what it means for Corrections and prisons and trans safety in general.  We're also pushing on Corrections to answer the questions we've asked them about how many trans prisoners there are, where they're being kept, what their safety is like. We've heard from one person who knows of another trans prisoner in the wrong prison, so we're gonna be helping them with advocacy and making sure that Corrections knows that we know that they're there, so they can't do this again.

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[Transcript of 3 News’ video coverage of Jade’s transfer on the 27th of August]

Presenter: Transgender activists are celebrating tonight after the Department of Corrections agreed to move a trans woman from Rimutaka prison to a women's facility. Jade Follett is behind bars for stabbing a man who stalked her. Amanda Gillies reports.

[cheering]

Amanda Gillies, voiceover: Hugs instead of hunger. Transgender activists end their protest - their hunger strike - after news this afternoon that Jade Follett will finally from a men's to a women's prison.

Jennifer Shields: We're really happy, we're glad that this action has been taken real quick. We wanna hear back when she's been physically transferred, we wanna know that she's safe in a women's facility as soon as possible.

Gillies, voiceover: Rewind five hours: Jennifer Shields began her hunger strike on Auckland's K Road, furious Follett was in a men's prison, demanding she be transferred to a women's facility. Follett is transgender: born male, now female.

Gillies: She lives as a woman?

Shields: Yeah, definitely.

Gillies: And she considers herself a woman?

Shields: Yeah, 100%.

Gillies: And she wants to be in a women's prison?

Shields: Yeah, she's a woman, she should be in a women's prison.

Gillies, voiceover: Life behind male bars had been tough, she said, for Follett.

Shields: She says she's had trouble from, particularly in the remand facility she was in, trouble from some prison officers causing some problems, and a couple of inmates in the current prison, but she says she stood up to them and they kinda backed down.

[95bFM Radio Interview with Emilie Rākete from the 26th August 2015. Thanks to Sophie B for the transcript.]

[Opening music] 

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Kermath: Transgender prisoner Jade Follett is currently being held at a minimum to high security all-men's prison. Rimutaka Prison, based in Upper Hutt, is an all men's facility capable of holding up to just over a thousand prisoners. A recent amendment in the legislation should allow all those who   identify with a certain gender to be paired with the respective gender-matching prison, but is not the case with Follett. I've reached out to the Department of Corrections this morning who have said they aren't doing any interviews at this stage, but have followed up with a statement by Rimutaka Prison Director Chris Burns. He states that the request was only received over the weekend, and is the first of its nature at the prison this year. The department has acknowledged that the request is of significance, and will be treated with urgency. I did get to speak with Emilie Rākete, spokesperson for No Pride in Prisons. who are currently campaigning for Jade's transfer to a women's prison. Good morning Emilie! Thanks for taking a moment to speak with me. Jade Follett's case is quite concerning regarding the significant battle she's facing to change to a gender-matching prison. Has the group been in touch with Jade Follett and   Rimutaka Prison - is Jade in real danger here? 

Emilie: Yeah, we've been in touch with Jade for a little while now, writing letters to her and stuff, and she said that she's safe for now. But we know from studies done in the United States that trans women in men's prisons are sexually assaulted 13 times more than the rest of the population. So we know that she's strong, and she says that she's safe at the moment, but by no means is she in like a totally safe environment. 

Kermath: What is the general attitude from the Department of Corrections towards transgendered [sic] prisoners in New Zealand? 

Emilie: For a few months now we've been sending in a number of Official Information Act requests, trying to get information from the Department about how many trans people they have incarcerated, and how their policies for caring for trans people while they're incarcerated are being carried out. And they've turned down and dodged every single one of those Official Information Act requests. So the attitude so far is one of kind of abusive neglect. 

Kermath: So do you think they actually hold information about these prisoners and aren't letting the public see that? Or do you think they've just not collected it at all? 

Emilie: I think they're deliberately not collecting the information because then they'd be accountable to the public. Cause there's no way that, in a prison of several hundred people, if there was a trans person, it would be well known by staff - the information exists, they're simply not collecting it. The thing that's really troubling: we've got no way of knowing how many trans people they've got incarcerated, what they're doing with them - in 2014 they nominally kind of reformed their policies around trans people to make sure that they were safe,   but we've got no way of checking if any of those policies have actually been implemented because they won't give us any information. We've put in a bunch of Official Information Act requests that the Department is legally obligated to respond to. They're saying that they don't have the infrastructure to collate the demographic data that we're asking for, and that they don't collect because they don't collect data to protect the safety of incarcerated people; they only collect it to meet their health and safety requirements - which I think this comes under, but apparently they don't. 

Kermath: We've seen changes pretty recently in the legislation where it allows, if you've got male on your birth certificate, then you're taken to a male prison. 

Emilie: Uh huh  

Kermath: Is that being enforced? 

Emilie: Yeah it is, and it's troubling because it's actually quite difficult to get your birth certificate changed. Most trans people don't get their birth certificates changed because it's a big investment of money, actually, and it's quite a   confusing process to get all the paperwork done. So the policy changes that Corrections put through last year actually won't be addressing the problem for a lot of trans people -  like we've seen with Jade. 

Kermath: Can prisoners change their gender while being in prison? 

Emilie: Well if you get incarcerated in a facility which does not match your gender identification then you can apply to the Chief Executive of Corrections to be moved to a correct facility. That's what Jade's done two months ago but it still hasn't happened. So there's definitely, within Corrections policies at the moment, there's leeway for prisoners to be moved to the correct facilities, but as we've seen, Corrections doesn't seem interested in actually enforcing any of those policies. 

Kermath: What steps is No Pride in Prisons, your group, taking to make Corrections aware of the issue, and what's being planned by the group? 

Emilie: We're staring a hunger strike. Starting Thursday - that's tomorrow, actually - until Jade is moved to an appropriate facility where she'll be safer. They've been informed that the hunger strike is in action and they already   seem to be responding, which is positive. And we're gonna continue from there, with a number of things I can't really talk about just yet, to make sure that Corrections first of all release the information that we're asking for about the scale of transgender incarceration in Aotearoa. We're gonna be, every day, or probably roughly every day, starting tomorrow we're gonna be having a vigil on K Road outside St Kevin's Arcade; we're gonna have teach-ins, we're gonna have speakers, we're gonna mostly be sitting there not eating, but I think it'll be more interesting than that sounds.

Kermath: And if someone wanted to get involved, how would they get involved in the vigil? 

Emilie: If you just search No Pride in Prisons on Facebook, our page is there and there's a link to the event on there; or you can also find us on Twitter, @noprisonpride. We wanna know how many trans people are currently incarcerated in Aotearoa, what facilities they're being held in, how many of   them have had their application for assignment to a correct facility approved or denied and on what grounds. Basically we just want Corrections to address the Information Act requests that Corrections have had sitting on their desk for months now. 

No Pride in Prisons Reveals Administrative Mismanagement of Transgender Prisoner

The activist group behind today’s hunger strike is releasing proof that the Department of Corrections hugely mismanaged Jade Follett’s transfer request.

In a letter to MP Jan Logie, Minister of Corrections Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga confirmed that the Department of Corrections received a transfer request from Follett on the 29th of June 2015:

“Both my officials and I read with concern that an earlier application had been made by Jade. Their enquiries with Jade have concluded that she handed a written request for consideration to be transferred to a women’s facility on 29 June 2015 to a Corrections Officer. This was in turn given to a Principal Corrections Officer who subsequently went on leave. I have been advised by my Corrections Officials that this letter does not appear to have been forwarded to prison management for processing. My officials are looking into this matter to understand how the process broke down. I expect them to implement some changes to strengthen the process as a result.”

No Pride in Prisons has publicly posted the full letter from Lotu-Iiga on their official Facebook page.

‘What this statement demonstrates is the institutional incompetence of our Department of Corrections‘, says No Pride In Prisons spokesperson Jennifer Katherine Shields. ‘Jade was allowed to remain in an unsafe situation for two months longer than necessary because the Department is failing to secure the safety of its prisoners.’

‘As well as this, the Department’s administrative failure has meant that Jade’s integrity has been put into question. Corrections knew that Jade had applied for transfer months ago, but only mentioned her recent reapplication in their statements to the press. This gave the impression that Jade was not telling the truth.’

No Pride In Prisons will be holding a public forum next Friday the 4th of September at the University of Auckland. The group will discuss the implications of Jade’s treatment in the context of broader institutional failings by the Department of Corrections, and develop a plan for further actions.

[Image descriptions: A letter dated 27 August 2015 addressed to Member of Parliament Jan Logie on Sam Lotu-Iiga's official letterhead. The letter, split across two pages, reads as follows: "Dear Ms Logie I thank you for your letter dated 25 August 2015, raising concerns on behalf of the group No Pride In Prisons regarding the safety of prisoner Jade Follett, who has requested to be transferred to a women's facility. I was deeply concerned to read your letter regarding Jade's request to transfer from Rimutaka Prison. I can assure you that I take prisoner safety very seriously. I have assurances from Corrections Officials that they have Jade's wellbeing at the forefront of their concerns. Both my officials and I read with concern that an earlier application had been made by Jade. Their enquiries with Jade have concluded that she handed a written request for consideration to be transferred to a women's facility on 29 June 2015 to a Corrections Officer. This was in turn given to a Principal Corrections Officer who subsequently went on leave. I have been advised by my Corrections Officials that this letter does not appear to have been forwarded on to prison management for processing. My officials are looking into this matter to understand how the process broke down. I expect them to implement some changes to strengthen the process as a result. I understand that Rimutaka Prison management received a new request from Jade to be transferred to a women's facility on 22 August 2015. Jade's application for transfer has been assessed by Custodial and Health staff as a matter of priority. As part of the assessment of the application, the safety concerns of Jade and other prisoners were also considered. I can advise that the Chief Executive has today approved the transfer request and Jade will be transferred to a women's prison this afternoon. I understand that Prison Director Chris Burns will be making an apology to Jade for the delay in processing her application. The Government is very aware and sympathetic to the particular needs of transgender prisoners including the issues surrounding their placement and safety. You may be aware that an amendment to the Corrections Regulations 2005 came into effect on 10 February 2014. The amendment puts in place new requirements for determining whether Transgender and Intersex prisoners should be accommodated in either a male or female prison. Amendments to regulation 190 of the Corrections Act 2005 have the following two elements.