Too Sick for Jail — But Not for Solitary
The state of Tennessee locked Regenia Bowman in solitary confinement for more than six months because she had a skin infection.
Bowman wasn’t violent, and she hadn’t threatened anyone. She was free on bond when she walked into a courtroom in Bledsoe County in April 2014 to answer charges of selling prescription painkillers, a violation of her probation on a similar charge. During the hearing, when it looked like Bowman was headed to jail, her lawyer revealed she was sick with what turned out to be MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant staph infection.
The judge suggested sending her to a “special needs” facility in Nashville. Bowman, now 54, assumed she would be going to a clinic or hospital.
Instead, she was driven more than 120 miles to the Tennessee Prison for Women, which usually houses people already convicted of a crime. There, without understanding why, she was dressed in white, the uniform of maximum security prisoners. She was placed in solitary — locked down 23 hours a day with three showers a week and fed through a slot in her cell door. The MRSA cleared up in about two months, she said, but records show she was held in these conditions for 189 days.
“I was terrified,” Bowman said. “The first two days I was so afraid I wouldn’t even go outside because I had no idea what was going on.”
Bowman had been declared a safekeeper.
Under a state law virtually unchanged
