Thursday, April 10, 2014

This Is Wrong On So Many Levels

The first is that the youth is only has not been convicted of any crime and another is she is being incarcerated in an adult prison. Lastly I can’t help but wonder if it is because she is transgender.
In Rare Move, DCF Transfers Juvenile To Prison With No Pending Charges
Transgender youth evaluated at York prison
By JOSH KOVNER,
The Hartford Courant
April 9, 2014

A youth under the care of the Department of Children and Families has been transferred to an adult prison with no criminal charge pending — a rare action that has triggered strong opposition from the state child advocate's office and the youth's public defender.

The transgender youth, 16, identifies as a female. The teen, with a history of assaulting staff members in juvenile facilities, was ordered transferred to prison on Tuesday. DCF argued before a judge that it could not care for the youth at any of its programs, including the high-security Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown.
[…]
It is the first time in 14 years that the statute has been used, and the first in more than 20 years that the youth in question was a ward of DCF. The agency deals with dozens of assaultive youths, including those who have been arrested multiple times in a matter of days for assaults against staff at the training school.
I can help wondering if her violence is rooted in harassment against her. Are the other children harassing her and she is fighting back? Is the staff using her old name and pronouns? But according to the article her behavior is not that different from the other youth at the DCF facility. The article reports that,
"DCF asked for and the court approved a plan to treat this girl as if she were an adult and a criminal, although she is neither,'' Staub said.

The agency pursued this action "simply because she is a transgendered girl," Staub [legal director of the ACLU of Connecticut] said. "No other girl in DCF custody has been endangered in this way. The result, if not the intent, is clearly discriminatory."
Right now she is being held at the York Correctional Institution for women in Niantic and they are deciding if she should be transferred to Manson Youth Institution for males up to age 20 in Cheshire. I think it will be a disaster if they transfer her to Cheshire, she will either have to be kept in isolation or be raped if she is in with the general prison population.

And remember, she has not been charged with any crime.

2 comments:

  1. This really does reek of injustice. What a predicament. May the right path be trodden.....

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  2. My heart breaks , since I have learned about this. I just need to learn more about what is happening to this poor child. thank you for sharing this.
    Davina

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