Court: Female inmates can sue jail over colored underwear ban
CHICAGO -- A federal appeals court says female inmates can sue a county jail in northwest Illinois for prohibiting them from wearing colored underwear.
The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin reported Friday the Rock Island County Jail barred colored undergarments on grounds the color could be extracted to make tattoos. It required white underwear or no underwear at all.
Ten one-time inmates say the policy violated their rights by subjecting them to indignities.
In its ruling this week, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said county authorities hadn’t offered sound justification for the ban and it reversed a lower court that tossed the 2010 suit.
The county has dropped the colored-underwear prohibition since the suit was filed. But that doesn’t preclude the former inmates from seeking damages for rights violations.
Conditions in jails nationwide aren’t geared toward female inmates, a report released last year noted. Jails often don’t provide feminine hygiene products or toilet paper, among other items. In one Michigan case filed by the ACLU, women held in the Muskegon County Jail alleged they were denied menstruation hygiene products, toilet paper and underwear.