Honesty Bishop could hear the screams of other people in solitary confinement. Sometimes it was so cold in her cell, she could see her breath. She dealt with scabies and mold. Her days and nights were spent in extreme isolation.
The Missouri Department of Corrections kept her locked in a cell about the size of a parking space for over six years.
She wrote letters to her sister, Latasha Monroe, in St. Louis. They both wondered why Bishop continued to be held in such severe conditions at Jefferson City Correctional Center, a men’s facility.
Interviews and records on Bishop’s years in solitary confinement paint a dark picture of a person who felt alone and hopeless, and, in the depths of despair, was driven to self-harm.
Bishop, a transgender woman, initially landed there after her cellmate tried to sexually assault her in spring 2015.
She was HIV-positive and because of the assault was classified as “sexually active” — even though she was the victim and had been on medication, making the virus undetectable and therefore untransmissible, according to a federal lawsuit filed against the Missouri Department of Corrections.
Among the reasons people can be kept in isolation, according to the department’s policy, are murder, rape and being sexually active with HIV. In her suit, Bishop said corrections officials kept her in solitary confinement because of her HIV status.
Whenever she appeared before a committee that reviewed her placement in solitary, which generally took place every 30 or 90 days, corrections officials noted 15 times when Bishop had no violations since the previous review.
“I’ve been good,” she told them during a hearing on her solitary confinement in January 2016, and again that September.
Though she filed grievances about how long she had been kept in solitary, her pleas were ignored. Department of Corrections officials wouldn’t release her from the unit until 2021 — after more than 2,000 days.
Missouri is one of three states that singles out people with HIV when it comes to solitary confinement, according to a review of 49 states’ policies on administrative segregation and restrictive housing.
The department’s HIV policy will now be changed under the terms of an Aug. 20 settlement that resulted from the lawsuit.
The state agreed to remove language singling out people with HIV for segregation. The terms also include conducting an assessment of anyone with HIV who is sent to solitary and mandatory training for some prison staff.
The department would not comment specifically on the policy or the lawsuit. Karen Pojmann, a spokeswoman for the agency, said a committee is in the process of overhauling restrictive housing. Two prisons are piloting a new model that includes “meaningful hearings” and programming to help people reenter the general population in prison, she said.
Bishop did not live to see the policy change — she died by suicide on Aug. 13, 2024. She was 34.
Punishing people with HIV
In March 2011, O’Fallon, Missouri, police showed up at Bishop’s foster mother’s home in the St. Louis suburb with an arrest warrant alleging Bishop had stolen something worth less than $750.
Bishop and her siblings had been split up when they were younger, but stayed in contact with the help of a caseworker.
Monroe, 38, said her sister showed signs of her gender identity as a child.
“Kids, they play house or something, and she would want to be the momma,” said Monroe, who was four years older than Bishop. “She was always the mom, and we were like her kids and everything, so I felt it then.”
In their later teenage years, the siblings didn’t need a caseworker to help keep them together — the sisters stayed close on their own. Monroe gave Bishop driving lessons in Forest Park in her Oldsmobile Cutlass. They went to the Pride festival in St. Louis for many years, and to parties and drag shows, where they could let loose and be themselves.
When the officer showed up at her home to arrest Bishop, who was 20 at the time, she initially complied, then ran. They scuffled, and she bit him. Once in custody, she told the officer she fled because she was scared.
She pleaded guilty to resisting arrest, assaulting a law enforcement officer and recklessly risking HIV infection — a crime that came with a 15-year sentence. Missouri passed a law in 1988 that criminalized some forms of transmitting HIV. The measure was expanded in 2002 to specifically include biting, but that provision was removed in 2021.
After Bishop violated probation, she was sentenced to 22 years in prison in March 2014.
As of January 2025, 218 people with HIV were incarcerated in Missouri, according to records obtained by The Midwest Newsroom and The Marshall Project - St. Louis. Twelve were housed at the Jefferson City Correctional Center, a facility that has been the subject of complaints and where the 2023 death of an incarcerated man led to criminal charges against several corrections officers.
It was there that Bishop began transitioning from male to female. At times, she had access to gender-affirming clothing and medical care. Bishop chose her first name, Honesty, Monroe said, because she was honest and was “gonna tell you like it is.”
Transgender people in prison are particularly vulnerable to violence and discrimination. Thirty-five percent reported being sexually victimized in prison, according to a 2015 federal study. Bishop’s cellmate attempted to sexually assault her in April 2015.
The sexual assault led the Missouri Department of Corrections to deem her “sexually active.” Its policy says someone with HIV who is sexually active can be sent to solitary. Missouri, Alaska and Michigan single out those with HIV in their administrative segregation policies. In response to a public records request, Alabama said its policy was “a restricted document.”
Such policies are “very unnecessarily stigmatizing,” said Tara Vijayan, a professor of medicine at UCLA who has been caring for patients with HIV since 2007.
“It’s not clear to me what the goal is or what they’re trying to prevent,” she said, adding that since 2011, evidence has shown that patients with undetectable levels of the virus cannot transmit it.
It’s unknown how many people are held in mandated single cells in Missouri based on being sexually active with HIV. The department does not have those records, said Matt Briesacher, chief counsel for the Missouri Department of Corrections.
The damage of solitary confinement
Bishop was allowed out of her cell — shackled — for one hour, three days a week, according to the lawsuit. She did not have access to a phone, classes or a job. She particularly missed TV and radio because she loved music. Beyoncé was her favorite artist.
For three years, Bishop did not receive gender-affirming medical care. She was exposed to chemical agents used to subdue other prisoners. A corrections caseworker told Bishop she was going to “rot in there” because she had HIV, the lawsuit said.
She got depressed and anxious, and tried to take her life in 2015 and again in 2016.
Craig Haney, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has been studying the psychological effects of solitary confinement since its use began increasing in the 1970s as a way to deal with overcrowding.
“It is a psychologically traumatizing experience,” Haney said of the research he and others have done. “It persists after somebody gets out of solitary confinement. In some instances, it’s fatal.”
People in long-term isolation often draw deeper into themselves, he said. Their capability to interact with others atrophies. When they’re released back into the general prison population, there’s an expectation that everything is OK again.
“Nobody gives people coming out of solitary confinement the kind of special attention and therapeutic contact that they need to be able to reintegrate themselves back into a social world,” Haney said. “And that’s compounded if they then get released from prison, and they have to figure out not only the difficult task of making the transition from prison to the free world.”
By September 2016, the department determined Bishop did not have any so-called enemies. The next month, charges against her from the altercation with her cellmate were dropped.
Bishop filed several grievances about her extended time in isolation — all of which were denied. In response to requests to review these documents, Briesacher said the grievances are closed records because they pertain to the “safety and security” of the prison.
While she was in solitary, corrections officials brought Bishop before a classification committee, which helps determine housing decisions, dozens of times. Findings were often nonexistent, according to the reports, only saying she was “on single cell mandate.”
Documents show the department’s justification for keeping her in isolation changed. A 2015 hearing cited the altercation with her cellmate. A September 2016 report said “poor behavioral issues.” A hearing from March 2017 claims she was assigned to solitary “due to adjustment issues.”
Some hearings failed to include a reason for her continued confinement. Others noted improved behavior or said she’d had no violations since the last review.
In the lawsuit, Bishop’s attorneys described the hearings as “sham reviews,” often lasting less than a minute. Bishop alleged that prison staff sometimes did not allow her to speak. In November 2017, she told the committee she’s been violation-free, which is confirmed in notes on the reports.
Finally, she was released from solitary in July 2021, and was freed on parole the following year.
Honesty’s legacy
Monroe and another sister drove to the prison to pick up Bishop.
“I just had joy,” Monroe recalled.
Bishop had grown out her hair and looked different due to her transition. The sisters celebrated her release, and Bishop was intent on getting her life together. She got a job as a cook and dishwasher at a local club, saved up to buy a Dodge Dart and met a man who became her partner, Monroe said.
The sisters enjoyed going to The Grove, a St. Louis neighborhood known for its LGBTQ+ culture. Monroe said it was an area where her sister felt like she could be herself. In other places, Bishop could feel paranoid.
With assistance from the MacArthur Justice Center, a nonprofit civil rights firm, and Lambda Legal Defense, Bishop filed her lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Corrections in June 2023. Monroe said her sister wanted justice and a change in policy after spending years in solitary confinement with no answers. The suit alleged the department’s policy was unconstitutional.
“It targets people living with HIV in a discriminatory way, based on stigma, and there’s just no reason for it,” said Shubra Ohri, an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center.
“It is our position [in the lawsuit] that she was tortured while in solitary confinement,” said Ohri.
Even when there was little to be positive about, Bishop saw the good around her, Ohri said.
“I like to say when you talk to Honesty, it felt like she was glowing,” she said. “She was just such a beautiful person and so curious about the world.”
Bishop was open about her struggles in solitary, and her suicide attempts.
Things took a turn when her boyfriend died in July 2024. Shortly after, Bishop and Monroe talked for hours. Monroe encouraged her to grieve, but also tried to impart some positivity. The last time they talked, Monroe told her about teaching her partner’s son to drive in Forest Park. Bishop sounded down on the call. A few days later, the family found out she had died by suicide.
Ohri said Bishop’s time in isolation played a “huge role” in her death. Outwardly, Bishop tried to stay positive. When she was struggling, she looked for a way to escape her sadness. But the “base trauma” of over six years in solitary created anxiety and darkness. That compounded when Bishop’s partner died.
In February, her attorneys refiled the case with Monroe as the plaintiff. The family wanted to pursue the case because they knew it was important to Bishop.
Life without her has been quieter. Monroe said she didn’t attend Pride in June.
“I’m used to her calling my phone and be like, ‘Hey honey,’” she said. “It’s been rough.”
But Monroe said her sister would be glad there was some measure of justice and that “things changed for the next person so they won’t have to go through what she had to go through.”
The Midwest Newsroom is an investigative and enterprise journalism collaboration that includes St. Louis Public Radio, Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, and NPR. There are many ways you can contact us with story ideas and leads, and you can find that information here. The Midwest Newsroom is a partner off The Trust Project. We invite you to review our ethics and practices here.
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Methodology
To tell this story, reporters Kavahn Mansouri and Katie Moore requested documents from the Missouri Department of Corrections regarding Honesty Bishop’s time in solitary confinement. They also compared solitary confinement policies in every state in the country with Missouri’s policy. They interviewed Honesty Bishop’s sister, Latasha Monroe, and her attorney, Shubra Ohri. The Missouri Department of Corrections declined to comment on the policy or the lawsuit.
References
“Revised Missouri Statute Removing Biting as a form of transmitting HIV.”
(Missouri Legislature | Aug. 2018)
“Honesty Bishop’s lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Corrections.”
(MacArthur Justice Center | June 2023)
“2015 federal study shows thirty-five percent of incarcerated transgender people reported being sexually victimized in prison”
(U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs | June 2015)
Type of Story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
