Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

A few years back, I finished a five-year appointment as a “settlement monitor” in a state prison system for a civil rights case about deaf and hard-of hearing people incarcerated there. With the consent of the parties, I had been appointed by a federal court to spend time in the state’s prisons, talking to prisoners and staff, and reviewing records and facilities. I saw some obvious problems. I recall one deaf prisoner; he used American Sign Language to communicate and could not speak at all. He was found to have committed a disciplinary infraction at a proceeding where he could not communicate, because he was handcuffed. Or another deaf prisoner who signed, this one illiterate, who sat, incommunicado, at his parole hearing because no interpreter was provided—a state official instead passed him notes he could not read. Most prevalent early in the settlement period was that deaf prisoners were entirely unable to talk to their families because they could not use the prison telephones.

Comments

Copyright © 2025 Margo Schlanger. This Article may be copied and distributed for free or at cost, with the author’s name and original publication citation remaining. Originally published as Margo Schlanger, Keynote: Promoting Disability Equality Behind Bars, 25 Nev. L.J. 537 (2025). Available at: https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/nlj/vol25/iss3/3

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