Honesty Bishop may hear the screams of different individuals in solitary confinement. Generally it was so chilly in her cell, she may see her breath. She handled scabies and mould. Her days and nights have been spent in excessive isolation.
The Missouri Division of Corrections saved her locked in a cell concerning the measurement of a parking area for over six years.
She wrote letters to her sister, Latasha Monroe, in St. Louis. They each questioned why Bishop continued to be held in such extreme situations at Jefferson Metropolis Correctional Middle, a males’s facility.
Interviews and information on Bishop’s years in solitary confinement paint a darkish image of an individual who felt alone and hopeless, and, within the depths of despair, was pushed to self-harm.
Bishop, a transgender lady, initially landed there after her cellmate tried to sexually assault her in spring 2015.
She was HIV-positive and due to the assault was categorized as “sexually energetic” — though she was the sufferer and had been on remedy, making the virus undetectable and due to this fact untransmissible, in response to a federal lawsuit filed in opposition to the Missouri Division of Corrections.
Among the many causes individuals might be saved in isolation, in response to the division’s coverage, are homicide, rape and being sexually energetic with HIV. In her swimsuit, Bishop mentioned corrections officers saved her in solitary confinement due to her HIV standing.
Each time she appeared earlier than a committee that reviewed her placement in solitary, which usually came about each 30 or 90 days, corrections officers famous 15 instances when Bishop had no violations because the earlier evaluation.
“I’ve been good,” she instructed them throughout a listening to on her solitary confinement in January 2016, and once more that September.
Although she filed grievances about how lengthy she had been saved in solitary, her pleas have been ignored. Division of Corrections officers wouldn’t launch her from the unit till 2021 — after greater than 2,000 days.
Missouri is one in every of three states that singles out individuals with HIV on the subject of solitary confinement, in response to a evaluation of 49 states’ insurance policies on administrative segregation and restrictive housing.
The division’s HIV coverage will now be modified beneath the phrases of an Aug. 20 settlement that resulted from the lawsuit.
The state agreed to take away language singling out individuals with HIV for segregation. The phrases additionally embody conducting an evaluation of anybody with HIV who is shipped to solitary and obligatory coaching for some jail workers.
The division wouldn’t remark particularly on the coverage or the lawsuit. Karen Pojmann, a spokeswoman for the company, mentioned a committee is within the technique of overhauling restrictive housing. Two prisons are piloting a brand new mannequin that features “significant hearings” and programming to assist individuals reenter the overall inhabitants in jail, she mentioned.
Bishop didn’t reside to see the coverage change — she died by suicide on Aug. 13, 2024. She was 34.
Punishing individuals with HIV
In March 2011, O’Fallon, Missouri, police confirmed up at Bishop’s foster mom’s house within the St. Louis suburb with an arrest warrant alleging Bishop had stolen one thing value lower than $750.
Bishop and her siblings had been break up up after they have been youthful, however stayed in touch with the assistance of a caseworker.
Monroe, 38, mentioned her sister confirmed indicators of her gender id as a toddler.
“Youngsters, they play home or one thing, and he or she would need to be the momma,” mentioned Monroe, who was 4 years older than Bishop. “She was at all times the mother, and we have been like her children and all the things, so I felt it then.”
Of their later teenage years, the siblings didn’t want a caseworker to assist preserve them collectively — the sisters stayed shut on their very own. Monroe gave Bishop driving classes in Forest Park in her Oldsmobile Cutlass. They went to the Delight pageant in St. Louis for a few years, and to events and drag exhibits, the place they might let unfastened and be themselves.
From left: Bishop’s sisters Bonita Scott, 20; Christina Monroe, 35; and Latasha Monroe, 38; on the Transgender Memorial Backyard in south St. Louis, in July 2025.
When the officer confirmed up at her house to arrest Bishop, who was 20 on the time, she initially complied, then ran. They scuffled, and he or she bit him. As soon as in custody, she instructed the officer she fled as a result of she was scared.
She pleaded responsible to resisting arrest, assaulting a regulation enforcement officer and recklessly risking HIV an infection — against the law that got here with a 15-year sentence. Missouri handed a regulation in 1988 that criminalized some types of transmitting HIV. The measure was expanded in 2002 to particularly embody biting, however that provision was eliminated in 2021.
After Bishop violated probation, she was sentenced to 22 years in jail in March 2014.
As of January 2025, 218 individuals with HIV have been incarcerated in Missouri, in response to information obtained by The Midwest Newsroom and The Marshall Challenge – St. Louis. Twelve have been housed on the Jefferson Metropolis Correctional Middle, a facility that has been the topic of complaints and the place the 2023 dying of an incarcerated man led to legal expenses in opposition to a number of corrections officers.
It was there that Bishop started transitioning from male to feminine. At instances, she had entry to gender-affirming clothes and medical care. Bishop selected her first identify, Honesty, Monroe mentioned, as a result of she was trustworthy and was “gonna inform you like it’s.”
Transgender individuals in jail are significantly weak to violence and discrimination. Thirty-five p.c reported being sexually victimized in jail, in response to a 2015 federal examine. Bishop’s cellmate tried to sexually assault her in April 2015.
Jefferson Metropolis Correctional Middle in Jefferson Metropolis, Missouri.
The sexual assault led the Missouri Division of Corrections to deem her “sexually energetic.” Its coverage says somebody with HIV who’s sexually energetic might be despatched to solitary. Missouri, Alaska and Michigan single out these with HIV of their administrative segregation insurance policies. In response to a public information request, Alabama mentioned its coverage was “a restricted doc.”
Such insurance policies are “very unnecessarily stigmatizing,” mentioned Tara Vijayan, a professor of medication at UCLA who has been caring for sufferers with HIV since 2007.
“It’s not clear to me what the objective is or what they’re making an attempt to forestall,” she mentioned, including that since 2011, proof has proven that sufferers with undetectable ranges of the virus can’t transmit it.
It’s unknown how many individuals are held in mandated single cells in Missouri based mostly on being sexually energetic with HIV. The division doesn’t have these information, mentioned Matt Briesacher, chief counsel for the Missouri Division of Corrections.
The injury of solitary confinement
Bishop was allowed out of her cell — shackled — for one hour, three days per week, in response to the lawsuit. She didn’t have entry to a telephone, courses or a job. She significantly missed TV and radio as a result of she cherished music. Beyoncé was her favourite artist.
For 3 years, Bishop didn’t obtain gender-affirming medical care. She was uncovered to chemical brokers used to subdue different prisoners. A corrections caseworker instructed Bishop she was going to “rot in there” as a result of she had HIV, the lawsuit mentioned.
She acquired depressed and anxious, and tried to take her life in 2015 and once more in 2016.
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Craig Haney, a professor of psychology on the College of California, Santa Cruz, has been learning the psychological results of solitary confinement since its use started growing within the Nineteen Seventies as a solution to cope with overcrowding.
“It’s a psychologically traumatizing expertise,” Haney mentioned of the analysis he and others have carried out. “It persists after anyone will get out of solitary confinement. In some cases, it’s deadly.”
Individuals in long-term isolation typically draw deeper into themselves, he mentioned. Their functionality to work together with others atrophies. Once they’re launched again into the overall jail inhabitants, there’s an expectation that all the things is OK once more.
“No person provides individuals popping out of solitary confinement the type of particular consideration and therapeutic contact that they want to have the ability to reintegrate themselves again right into a social world,” Haney mentioned. “And that’s compounded in the event that they then get launched from jail, and so they have to determine not solely the troublesome job of creating the transition from jail to the free world.”
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By September 2016, the division decided Bishop didn’t have any so-called enemies. The subsequent month, expenses in opposition to her from the altercation together with her cellmate have been dropped.
Bishop filed a number of grievances about her prolonged time in isolation — all of which have been denied. In response to requests to evaluation these paperwork, Briesacher mentioned the grievances are closed information as a result of they pertain to the “security and safety” of the jail.
Whereas she was in solitary, corrections officers introduced Bishop earlier than a classification committee, which helps decide housing choices, dozens of instances. Findings have been typically nonexistent, in response to the stories, solely saying she was “on single cell mandate.” Paperwork present the division’s justification for retaining her in isolation modified. A 2015 listening to cited the altercation together with her cellmate. A September 2016 report mentioned “poor behavioral points.” A listening to from March 2017 claims she was assigned to solitary “attributable to adjustment points.”
Some hearings failed to incorporate a motive for her continued confinement. Others famous improved habits or mentioned she’d had no violations because the final evaluation.
Within the lawsuit, Bishop’s attorneys described the hearings as “sham evaluations,” typically lasting lower than a minute. Bishop alleged that jail workers generally didn’t enable her to talk. In November 2017, she instructed the committee she’s been violation-free, which is confirmed in notes on the stories.
Lastly, she was launched from solitary in July 2021, and was freed on parole the next 12 months.
Honesty’s legacy
Monroe and one other sister drove to the jail to choose up Bishop.
“I simply had pleasure,” Monroe recalled.
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Bishop had grown out her hair and appeared totally different attributable to her transition. The sisters celebrated her launch, and Bishop was intent on getting her life collectively. She acquired a job as a cook dinner and dishwasher at a neighborhood membership, saved as much as purchase a Dodge Dart and met a person who grew to become her accomplice, Monroe mentioned.
The sisters loved going to The Grove, a St. Louis neighborhood recognized for its LGBTQ+ tradition. Monroe mentioned it was an space the place her sister felt like she might be herself. In different places, Bishop may really feel paranoid.
With help from the MacArthur Justice Middle, a nonprofit civil rights agency, and Lambda Authorized Protection, Bishop filed her lawsuit in opposition to the Missouri Division of Corrections in June 2023. Monroe mentioned her sister needed justice and a change in coverage after spending years in solitary confinement with no solutions. The swimsuit alleged the division’s coverage was unconstitutional.
MacArthur Justice Middle attorneys Amy Malinowski, left, and Shubra Ohri on the group’s Missouri workplace in downtown St. Louis, in July 2025.
“It targets individuals residing with HIV in a discriminatory means, based mostly on stigma, and there’s simply no motive for it,” mentioned Shubra Ohri, an legal professional with the MacArthur Justice Middle.
“It’s our place [in the lawsuit] that she was tortured whereas in solitary confinement,” mentioned Ohri.
Even when there was little to be optimistic about, Bishop noticed the great round her, Ohri mentioned.
“I wish to say if you speak to Honesty, it felt like she was glowing,” she mentioned. “She was simply such a good looking particular person and so curious concerning the world.”
Bishop was open about her struggles in solitary, and her suicide makes an attempt.
Issues took a flip when her boyfriend died in July 2024. Shortly after, Bishop and Monroe talked for hours. Monroe inspired her to grieve, but in addition tried to impart some positivity. The final time they talked, Monroe instructed her about educating her accomplice’s son to drive in Forest Park. Bishop sounded down on the decision. Just a few days later, the household discovered she had died by suicide.
Ohri mentioned Bishop’s time in isolation performed a “big function” in her dying. Outwardly, Bishop tried to remain optimistic. When she was struggling, she appeared for a solution to escape her unhappiness. However the “base trauma” of over six years in solitary created anxiousness and darkness. That compounded when Bishop’s accomplice died.
In February, her attorneys refiled the case with Monroe because the plaintiff. The household needed to pursue the case as a result of they knew it was vital to Bishop.
Life with out her has been quieter. Monroe mentioned she didn’t attend Delight in June.
“I’m used to her calling my telephone and be like, ‘Hey honey,’” she mentioned. “It’s been tough.”
However Monroe mentioned her sister can be glad there was some measure of justice and that “issues modified for the following particular person in order that they received’t should undergo what she needed to undergo.”
