A report has been released this morning by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union which reveals the prevalence of abuse and neglect of girls within New York’s juvenile prisons.

Custody and Control: Conditions of Confinement in New York’s Juvenile Prisons for Girls describes the treatment that girls are subjected to in the two higher-security juvenile facilities in New York, Tryon and Lansing.

The report calls for the facilities to refrain from their “restraint� procedure, which means to seize them from behind, pushing them to the floor, and pulling their arms up behind them to hold or handcuff them. While that technique would be appropriate in an emergency, there’s evidence that staff use restraint to punish girls for minor acts such as not properly making their bed or not raising their hand when they talk. Additionally, the violence of the procedure often leaves them with bruises faces, cuts, and even an occasional broken limb.

There’s also been evidence of sexual abuse. The ACLU also documented three cases of staff having sex with the girls in the last five years, as well as staff humiliating the girls by publicly talking of their sexual history, sexual abuse or infection with an STI.

Jamie Fellner, Director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, said:

"New York says it locks these girls up for their own good, but then they end up battered and bruised. There's no way staff violence against girls can help them get their lives together, particularly when so many of the girls already have personal histories full of violence and abuse."

Here is the full report.

1 Comments

September 25, 2006 4:53 PM

[0+]  Alecto said:

I know this probably has to do with a lack of people willing to take the job, but why are there male guards in a girls' prison? That just seems to invite abuse. (Yes, female guards probably sexually abuse the girls too, but I seriously doubt it's as frequent.)

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