Disabled Victory Behind Bars.

Lynchburg, Virginia

The Virginia correctional system was not ready for Christopher Tucker.

In September, Tucker was arrested when Lynchburg police entered his home with a search warrant and claimed to have round a small amount of marijuana.

But Tucker is not your typical inmate. Three years ago, he became quadriplegic as the result of a car accident. He has used a wheelchair since and requires daily assistance to stay alive.

At first, Tucker was held in a tiny cell in a city police lockup, where it was impossible for his mother, Patricia Theodore, to administer the routine he must go through every other day in order to have a bowel movement. There was no room to maneuver in the cell, Tucker says.

After three days, Tucker was transported to the Greensville Correctional Facility in Jarratt, Virginia, about two hours away. When he arrived, he says, he learned there were no orders for him to receive his bowel program or the catheterization he needs every few hours. It is life-threatening for Tucker not to receive this care.

When Tucker called his mother, she contacted Louisa Overstreet, a local disability rights activist. "We knew we had to go public," says Overstreet.

With the help of the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and several disability rights organizations, phone trees, list serves, and e-mail networks were buzzing with the news of Tucker's predicament. Theodore appeared as a guest on the nationally syndicated radio talk show on disability issues On a Roll. Calls and faxes poured in to the governor and the state's Department of Corrections.

Meanwhile, "I wasn't drinking and I wasn't eating," so as to reduce bodily waste production, says Tucker. He suffered a pounding headache--a sign of impending trouble.

Finally, after a visit to Greensville by the head attorney of the Department for Rights of Virginians with Disabilities, the state protection and advocacy organization, Tucker says he began receiving proper care. Later that week, he was released. He awaits arraignment in November.

Now Theodore wonders what happens to all those prisoners with disabilities who don't get the attention and response that Tucker did. "I think there are a lot of people out there like this," she says.

The U.S. Supreme Court stated clearly in Pennsylvania Department of Corrections v. Yeskey that the access provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act apply to state prisons. But, as Tucker's case illustrates, when people with disabilities enter the prison system, they often find that these provisions of the law are not being enforced. State and local prison facilities routinely and blatantly ignore their access responsibilities, says Marjorie Rifkin, a civil rights attorney in Washington, D.C., who until recently worked for the National Prison Project of the ACLU. "We're talking about access to toilets, showers, basic services."

"I'm hot saying that because I'm disabled they shouldn't lock me up," says Tucker. "But if they're going to lock me up, they should have people who can take care of me.