JOINT PRESS RELEASE
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) and the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) have filed a demand letter with the Correctional Institution for Women (CIW) following reports that persons deprived of liberty (PDLS) were pressured or compelled to sign documents connected with alleged irregularities involving their Trust Fund accounts.
Women PDLs also reported that access to deposits, withdrawals, and transfers was restricted. Their money and rights cannot be used as leverage to secure signatures or force cooperation.
NUPL and PILC demand that CIW immediately:
• End all coercion, intimidation, and misleading practices;
• Return retained passbooks and restore access to undisputed funds;
• Ensure voluntary participation in the investigation with meaningful access to counsel;
• Explain restrictions and disclose the safeguards governing the Trust Fund and cashless system;
• Preserve all relevant financial and investigative records; and
• Protect PDLs from reprisals for refusing to sign documents, seeking legal assistance, or demanding an accounting of their funds.
Women deprived of liberty must not bear the consequences of failures they did not cause. Accountability requires both a fair investigation into what happened to their money and a full accounting of the institution’s responsibility for protecting it.
