An inmate at New Jersey’s Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women (EMCFW) is speaking out against the transfer of trans-identifying male convicts into the facility.
Speaking with Reduxx, incarcerated woman Miseka Diggs explained that the female inmates in EMCFW are “scared to death” of the men. Under the current policy, the men do not need to undergo any surgery, and Diggs asserts that most of the men are not on hormone replacement therapy. She stated that a majority of women incarcerated at EMCFW have past trauma, with many being victims of male violence, and the presence of men in the facility is causing them severe distress.
According to a 2016 report from the Vera Institute of Justice, 86% of incarcerated women have a history of abuse and 77% have a history of experiencing intimate partner violence. Women’s rights advocates have described this situation as a “sexual abuse-to-prison pipeline.”
“It is like you are living in an abusive situation. I have anxiety that I never knew about,” said Diggs. She explained that she had been visiting the mental health services to address the ways in which the presence of violent men in the women’s facility was bringing up her own feelings related to her past.
According to Diggs, women who complain of feeling unsafe are placed in protective custody.
“We can’t express our feelings in fear of being put in protective custody, [which] is like lock-up. If you use the wrong words you will be uprooted and removed from your living quarters. So many women walk around in fear,” Diggs said.
“We feel like we are part of some sick joke. This is a nightmare that we can’t wake up from,” she added. “The women here are traumatized over and over again and it seems as if no one cares about our needs. We feel like second-class citizens with no rights.”
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Diggs described her anxiety at having to share a shower with one of the male transfers, whom she identified as Nikita Selket. Selket, formerly Neil LaBranche, is a 6′ 7″ man serving a thirty-year sentence for the murder of his roommate in 1995. The New Jersey Department of Corrections has recorded LaBranche as “female.” He is one of 27 men who have been transferred into the women’s facility since last year. The decision was the result of a legal settlement between state officials and ACLU New Jersey.
“When [LaBranche] came in and got into the shower next to me I felt violated in every form possible! I couldn’t believe that I was showering with a person with genetic male parts,” Diggs said. LaBranche is allegedly also watching women as they shower, with a “smile, as if [he] liked what was happening.”
Read more: Reduxx
