Transgender Teen Spends Five Weeks in Solitary at an Adult Prison — Without Being Charged

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/transgender-teen-spends-five-weeks-solitary-adult-prison-without-being-charged



A 16-year-old transgender girl was held in solitary confinement at an adult prison in Connecticut for five weeks, despite the fact that she is a juvenile, is not serving a prison sentence and there are no actual charges against her. The distressing chain of events that led to her eventual detention at an adult facility paint a shameful portrait of our badly broken juvenile care and juvenile justice systems, and our culture’s general disregard for the lives and safety of trans people.

Reporting for Mother Jones, Shane Bauer tells Jane Doe’s story in harrowing detail. But Doe has also been telling her own story since she found herself detained in the Connecticut prison. In a letter to Connecticut Gov. Dannel Molloy, Doe wrote, “I feel forgotten and thrown away. As you probably know, these feeling are not new for me. This is the way my life has been going since I was a little kid.” As Bauer reports, the Connecticut Department of Children and Families became Jane Doe’s legal guardian when she was 11 years old. Her father was incarcerated, her mother faced an ongoing struggle with substance abuse and Doe says the relatives entrusted with her care were physically and sexually abusive to her.

Jane Doe ended up in an adult prison after allegedly attacking a staff member at the juvenile facility where she was serving a sentence for assault. According to Doe’s lawyer, the incident was a trauma response from a survivor of lifelong sexual abuse. Doe allegedly attacked a female staffer after being restrained from behind by another male staffer. “This is a girl who has been sexually abused,” Aaron Romano told Mother Jones. “She is inclined to interpret actions with that view.”

“We don’t have a good sense of where our system has its strengths and weaknesses,” Abby Anderson, executive director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance, told Mother Jones, commenting on Doe’s case. Inadequate mental health and trauma support resources for trans youth and survivors of physical and sexual abuse only compound the problem.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. And she's still there, without being charged

She has many psychiatric problems, that's clear, from awful mistreatment over a number of years. She needs to be in a hospital.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/transgender-16-year-old-solitary-cell-adult-prison

[xchrom]

2. +1

[jwirr]

3. We are rapidly becoming the most ignorant country in the world.

[Starry Messenger]

4. k&r

[msanthrope]

5. Actually...she is charged, and sentenced. It seems that she is being detained under the

sentence that she previously got for assault****...she committed another assault while in the juvie facility, and that prompted her removal...it's entirely possible the State does not have an adequate facility for her, and are simply putting her in the most secure and restrictive environment until they can figure out what to do with her.

The State of CT needs to resolve where she's going to be, though, until she emancipates.

****juvies are 'adjudicated.'

[Arthur_Frain]

6. Question?

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but doesn't the term "transgender" refer to someone who has undergone the surgery to become so? If so, my first question is how does a 16 year old with this kind of history get the surgery approved? I don't know any hospital that would do this without legal guardian consent being given.

Or if it's true she was charged and convicted of a previous crime, is this just another hack job of reporting something salacious, and she's not transgender, but wants to be?

[surrealAmerican]

7. "Transgender" is a more inclusive term for ...

... people who identify themselves as the gender they were not born resembling, regardless of surgical or hormonal "re-assignment".

[Arthur_Frain]

8. Thanks for the clarification

I did not have my definition clear.