Teens Suffer Solitary Confinement in NY State Prisons
By Joshua Philipp, Epoch Times
NEW YORK—New York and North Carolina are the only two states in the country that prosecute all 16 and 17 years olds as adults, regardless of the crime. If found guilty, they are sent to federal prisons where they can be subjected to solitary confinement, either as punishment or to protect them from adult inmates.
“Being held in solitary confinement, it’s designed to break you down mentally. And when it breaks you down mentally, it breaks you down physically as well,” said Ismael Nazario. At 17 years of age he was sentenced to 53 months for robbery and sent to Rikers Island, New York City’s main jail complex.
Nazario, who now works as a case manager for the Center for Community Alternatives, told the Epoch Times that in order to “try to find ways out of the box,” teenagers at Rikers Island would often fake suicide attempts.
Democratic senators said they would make reversing the law that automatically tries youth as adults a key issue in the state Senate.
“We are going to be moving on this as our top priority,” Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (D-Brooklyn) said during a July 11 rally in front of the Manhattan Municipal Building, along with community leaders, activists, and other officials, including Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-Bronx) and Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-WF).
Read more at http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/186283-teens-suffer-solitary-confinement-in-ny-state-prisons/