MITCHELLVILLE, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa prisons will change how they test inmates for drugs and discipline them after a settlement was reached Tuesday with three women who say they were wrongly punished based on false-positive drug tests.
The Iowa State Appeal Board approved the settlement between the Iowa Department of Corrections and the three inmates, Amanda Wright, Monica Fagan, and Cheyanne Harris, who are housed at the Mitchellville women’s prison and were represented by the ACLU of Iowa. The changes will apply to all Iowa prisons statewide.
The DOC previously relied solely on immunoassay field tests, which lack scientific reliability without laboratory confirmation. The DOC was also aware that prescribed medications could produce false positives for alleged illicit drug use…