The "Prison Within a Prison" Deaf Individuals Face
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
A note about language: For the readability purposes of this post, I will be using the term "deaf" to refer to a wide variety of identities, including (but not limited to) people who would describe themselves as deaf, Deaf, DeafBlind, Hard of Hearing, and more. The distinctions between these terms are important, and if you'd like to learn more, please visit this page by the National Association of the Deaf.
April marks both National Deaf History Month and National American Sign Language (ASL) Day, which was celebrated on the 15th of this month. At Books to Prisoners, this month serves as a reminder of the unique challenges and injustices that deaf people face within the prison system.
In 2012, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) reported that people who are "deaf or have a serious difficulty hearing" were represented in federal and state prisons at a rate of 3x the general population. In 2016, the last year this data was available, the BJS reported an increase from 2012 in the rate of hearing-related disabilities among state and federal prisoners. It is worth noting that the rates reported here are most likely undercounted due to the systemic communication barriers deaf people face while incarcerated.
Law Enforcement and Criminalization
Commonplace behaviors and cultural norms among some deaf individuals (such as using expressive facial cues, body language, and signing itself) can become criminalized when unrecognized or ignored by law enforcement.
The barriers and discrimination deaf people face in society are only heightened when they come into contact with law enforcement and the prison system. As reported by the Safety and Justice Challenge in 2025, deaf individuals or those with disabilities experience significantly higher rates of arrest than their hearing peers, with Black and Latinx deaf and/or disabled people experiencing the highest rates of this disparity.
Commonplace behaviors and cultural norms among some deaf individuals (such as using expressive facial cues, body language, and signing itself) can become criminalized when unrecognized or ignored by law enforcement. Officers who disregard or misinterpret a deaf individual's actions may mistakenly believe the person is failing to follow orders, which often results in arrest and violence against the deaf individual. Such was the case of Robert Kim, who was beaten and tasered for failing to respond to the spoken orders of police officers while pulled over to fix a flat tire; Abreham Zemedagegehu, who was wrongfully arrested and denied an interpreter, and was as a result unaware of why he was being held in jail; and Javier Diaz Santana, who was detained by ICE after not being able to hear their verbal orders.
"A Prison Within A Prison"
A lack of sign language interpretation can render mailrooms, religious services, administration offices, mental health counseling, sexual assault resource services, and much more wholly inaccessible.
After this first point of contact in the legal system, deaf people face additional discrimination while incarcerated. Described as "a prison within a prison," deaf incarcerated people experience profound isolation and harm, particularly when sign language interpretation is absent. This lack of basic communication services can often mean deaf incarcerated people are unable to receive or fully participate in medical appointments, resulting in worse health outcomes. Without interpretation services, it can become impossible to attend reentry programs or educational opportunities that can impact the length of one's sentence and one's readiness to leave prison. The impact that a lack of sign language interpretation can have extends through all aspects of prison life, rendering mailrooms, religious services, administrative offices, mental health counseling, and sexual assault response services wholly inaccessible for many deaf incarcerated people.
Those who use hearing aids in prison face additional restrictions. HEARD reports that many prisons limit the number of hearing aids an incarcerated person can use to one, even if they are required for both ears. Medical anthropologist Michele Friedner writes how restricting individuals to one hearing aid can be severely disabling for deaf incarcerated people by hindering one's ability to tell where sounds are coming from and adding greatly to the cognitive strain of navigating a noisy prison environment. Prison authorities are also known to restrict the number of batteries they provide for hearing aids, meaning that even if a hearing aid is provided, there is no guarantee that it will remain powered and functional.
The Impact of Isolation
Without access to interpretation services, hearing aids, and other accommodations (which individuals are legally entitled to under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act) deaf incarcerated people can face profound difficulty in communicating with corrections officers. As with encounters with police officers on the outside, interactions with prison guards who disregard or misread a person's signing, facial expressions, and body language can result in violence, increased isolation, and additional punishment. Journalist Rahsaan Thomas has reported on instances of deaf incarcerated people being assaulted, receiving greater numbers of disciplinary infractions, or being sent to solitary confinement for being unable to hear an officer's orders. HEARD describes how deaf incarcerated people are often kept apart from one another when corrections officers mistakenly believe their signing to be related to gang signs.
The relationship that deaf incarcerated people have with hearing incarcerated people is also impacted by a lack of necessary accommodations. Some must rely on hearing incarcerated people to alert them to alarms and emergency orders. Because deaf individuals are largely kept in with the general population of a prison, misunderstanding and conflict can arise when a hearing incarcerated person fails to recognize another's deafness. Barriers to communication, as well as the difficulty of perceiving danger (particularly during times like showering and sleep when hearing aids aren't typically worn), leave many deaf incarcerated people at higher risk of experiencing physical and sexual assault.
Telecommunications (In)Accessibility
In addition to facing substantial hurdles to communication inside, deaf incarcerated people face similarly difficult barriers to communicating with the outside world. After years of legal action and advocacy efforts by organizations like HEARD, in 2024 the Federal Communications Commission required that all companies who operate phone services in prisons, jails, and other detention centers provide a video communication option for use by deaf individuals. Prior to this, the only option for many deaf individuals in prison was an outdated communication system called a teletypewriter (TTY), also called a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD). This device, which few deaf people use today, works via typing out messages, which is labor-intensive, slow, and requires the individual receiving the message to also have a TTY device. It is increasingly rare that the family members, lawyers, and/or organizations on the outside that an incarcerated person might want to contact have such devices.
Despite the 2024 regulation change, HEARD continues to receive reports of deaf incarcerated individuals not having access to videophone communication. The regulation applies to companies managing calling services (Inmate Calling Services, or ICS), and not to corrections departments themselves, allowing prisons wiggle room to resist installing videocalling technology.
Resources to Learn More
These issues represent but a few of the challenges facing deaf individuals in prisons, jails, and detention centers. To learn more, please check out the essays and resources below. .
The Isolation of Being Deaf in Prison - Jeremy Woody (2018)
Prison, Like Life, Is Not Designed for the Deaf - Lexie Handlang (2022)
The Silent Treatment - Rahsaan Thomas (2023)
The Incarcerated Deaf Have Extra Challenges - Timothy Hicks (2020)
"Friendly Signs" - A short documentary, directed and co-produced by Rahsaan Thomas, that covers the creation of an ASL class at San Quentin by incarcerated people.
HEARD - Deaf and disability-led abolitionist group advocating for deaf and disabled incarcerated people. From their website: "We support deaf/disabled individuals to fight for their rights, access emotional and legal support in their language, learn about prison and police abolition, and access financial support while inside and in the crucial months after release."
Authored by Siri McGuire
