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

[unhappycamper]

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



Transgender Teen Spends Five Weeks in Solitary at an Adult Prison — Without Being Charged
Salon.com / By Katie McDonough

May 24, 2014 | 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.

~snip~

But the state of Connecticut says it doesn’t have a facility or program to give her the specific treatment and care that she needs, so it will allow her languish in isolation at an adult prison.

As Bauer reports, in the last week Doe has been moved out of solitary, but remains at the adult facility — still not serving a sentence, still without charges — devoid of contact with others and without any end in site. In her letter to Malloy, Doe said she would never let something like what’s happening to her happen to another person. “If I was in charge I wouldn’t let this happen,” she wrote. “If you’re the Governor then you are in charge of everyone who works for the state [...] Don’t forget about me. I can’t take another month of this.”

[xfundy]

1. Someone should get punished for this.

I'm not holding my breath.

[burrowowl]

2. How cruel!