Raising Awareness about the Transgender Community in Prison: Findings from a Statewide Training for Correctional Staff

Background & Significance: The transgender community faces health and mental health risks during incarceration. People who are transgender are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted by staff and nine times more likely to be sexually assaulted by other incarcerated people than the general jail and prison population. Beyond these trends of elevated risks within jails and prisons, there is documentation that most states are struggling to create responsive policy and healthcare services for people who are transgender. Correctional officers have been cited in research as laughing at, misunderstanding, and putting people who are transgender on display during searches, as well as harassing and physically and sexually assaulting transgender people. Correctional staff play an important role in reducing risks for this population yet they feel they lack knowledge and feel underprepared to adequately meet the needs of the population. This presentation discusses the development of a transgender awareness training for correctional staff and the evaluation of its impact on increasing knowledge and skills and reducing stigma.

Method: This study aimed to test the impact of a training on staff knowledge, stigma, confidence, and awareness with the transgender community. The training was developed in collaboration with researchers, Department of Corrections (DOC) administration, community experts, one transgender DOC staff and person incarcerated, and people from the transgender community (non-DOC). The training included 11 modules with content broken down into three-to-five-minute segments and was pilot tested with DOC staff who provided feedback. The final version of the training was launched statewide in 2021. A pre- and post-test design was used to assess changes in transgender awareness, knowledge, confidence, and stigma. Data were analyzed using measures of central tendency and ANOVA.

Results: 136 staff completed the pre- and post-test. This represents about 10% of the staff population. On average, staff significantly increased their knowledge (p< .001), skills (p< .001), and confidence (p< .001) in working with the transgender community and demonstrated significant reductions in stigma (p< .001).

Conclusions: Findings suggest a comprehensive training is helpful in preparing correctional staff to work safely and respectfully with transgender individuals who are incarcerated. Additional research is needed to better understand strategies for increasing the number of staff interested in this training and whether trainings like this can reduce the risk of maltreatment by staff towards the transgender community within jails and prisons.