(Houston March 15, 2017) —Today Lambda Legal announced the resolution of a lawsuit against Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) on behalf of Passion Star, a black transgender woman who filed a lawsuit alleging prison officials failed to protect her from sexual and physical abuse while incarcerated in male prisons.
(New York, NY– July 28, 2016) – Following the state of Texas’s latest assurance to the U.S. Department of Justice that it will work towards fully complying with Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in future years, Lambda Legal today sent a letter to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) PREA Ombudsman, urging investigations into several reports of sexual assault and abuse against LGBT people in Texas’s prison system.
(Houston, TX, March 14, 2016) – Today, a U.S. District Court rejected an attempt to remove Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), as a defendant in Zollicoffer v. Livingston, Lambda Legal’s federal lawsuit on behalf of Passion Star (legal name: Zollicoffer), a transgender woman currently in TDCJ custody.
(New York, NY – June 12, 2015) On Thursday, June 11th, Lambda Legal learned that the Department of Justice had accepted a new letter from Texas Governor Gregory Abbott certifying that Texas would take a more serious approach to implementing the standards of the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
(New York, NY – May 22, 2015) According to news reports, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has rejected Texas’s assurance that it will work to comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act standards.
(New York, NY, May 21, 2015) –Texas Governor Gregory Abbott has assured U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch that Texas will take steps to comply with the standards set by the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
“Our petition represents the voice of a public eager to reform Texas’s prisons. Rape is not an inevitable part of incarceration, but leadership is key. We are hopeful that Governor Abbott will do the right thing and take steps to implement PREA.”
