Deaf prisoner from the District files rights violation lawsuit

[The Northerner]

A federal inmate from the District who is deaf has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, saying that the agency has jeopardized his safety and violated his rights by failing to provide him with communications aids that he needs.

David Bryant, who is serving a 99-year sentence for rape, says he was punished by staff for ignoring instructions that he couldn't hear and that he was attacked by other inmates when he tried to activate the closed-captioning function on a communal television.

Bryant, 46, cannot understand spoken conversation and communicates through American Sign Language, according to his lawsuit, which was filed on Friday.

But since he began serving his current prison term in 2005, he has not had regular access to an interpreter or other vital aids, he says in his suit. That has made it difficult for Bryant to provide accurate information during medical evaluations or to participate in education or treatment programs.

"He is held in what amounts to communication isolation," said Deborah Golden, an attorney with the D.C. Prisoners' Project, which helped draft the lawsuit that seeks access to an interpreter to help him communicate, use of a vibrating alarm to alert him to important warnings or announcements, safe access to a television with closed-captioning and other accommodations. "He can't communicate with anyone, and he's cut off in a way that hearing prisoners, even in the most secure facilities, aren't."

Chris Burke, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, said Monday that the agency would not comment on a pending lawsuit. Burke said that each prison in the federal system is responsible for accommodating "whatever need an inmate presents based on his disability." Burke said he did not have a reliable count of how many of the bureau's approximately 210,000 inmates are hearing-impaired.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/10/AR2011011007115.html

[Historic NY]

1. paper & pencils work....perhaps & etch a sketch.

[littlewolf]

2. when I worked in DOC we had several inmates who

were deaf ... pencil and paper is what they used .... a couple of then knew ASL
and I have some ability with it ... so if I was on duty ... I could interpret for him ...
but only if I were assigned to his block ....
but 99% of the time he wrote what he needed ...
and the TV's stayed on CC .... there was no volume
hearing inmates used their am radios to listen ...

[Historic NY]

3. I've never had a problem communicating ...

2 friends were very impaired one gets to know some shortcut ASL. We had a phone system that we rarely ever used too.