[prisoner-rights] USA: Girls abused in New York's juvenile prisons

Violent Restraints, Sexual Abuse Must Stop 

(New York, September 25, 2006) -- Girls in New York's juvenile prisons are
being abused and neglected by state authorities, Human Rights Watch and
the American Civil Liberties Union charged in a report released today.

The report, "Custody and Control: Conditions of Confinement in New York's
Juvenile Prisons for Girls
(http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/us/2006/prisons0906/index.htm)," provides an
in-depth look at the abuses and neglect suffered by girls confined in two
remote New York juvenile facilities known as Tryon and Lansing. The
facilities are operated by the New York Office of Children and Family
Services (OCFS) and are the only two higher-security facilities in New
York State holding girls.

"New York wants to hide the fate of the girls it incarcerates," said Mie
Lewis, the report's author and Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch
and the ACLU. "The abuses have continued because the public has been kept
in the dark."

The report documents that Lansing and Tryon staffs frequently restrain
girls violently, seizing them from behind and pushing them to the floor,
then pulling their arms up behind them to hold or handcuff. Although such
a restraint procedure may be appropriate in an emergency, the indications
are that the staffs sometimes use it to punish girls for minor acts such
as improperly making their beds or not raising their hands before
speaking. Using such violent restraints for minor infractions constitutes
a disproportionate and excessive use of force. Girls who have been
restrained typically end up with 'rug burns' -- abrasions on their faces
-- as well as cuts, bruises, and in rare cases a concussion or a broken
limb.

Incarcerated girls may also be at risk of sexual abuse. Human Rights Watch
and the ACLU documented three cases in the past five years of staff having
intercourse with their wards. The report also reveals that staff have
touched girls in sexual ways and made sexual comments to them. Staff
members at Tryon and Lansing have also humiliated girls by publicly
commenting on their past sexual history, sexual abuse or infection with
sexually transmitted diseases.

Human Rights Watch and the ACLU are also concerned by the practice of
staff handcuffing and shackling the girls at Tryon and Lansing every time
they leave the facilities, a clear violation of OCFS's own regulations.
Girls are frequently and unnecessarily subjected to strip searches, verbal
abuse and threats as well.

Compounding the abuses in the facilities is the almost complete lack of
public information about what goes on inside. State watchdogs are weak and
understaffed, leaving no effective body to demand accountability, and the
OCFS itself actively resists public scrutiny. The agency refused to grant
researchers access to its facilities and attempted to withhold crucial
non-confidential documents from public disclosure.

"New York says it locks these girls up for their own good, but then they
end up battered and bruised," said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S.
Program at Human Rights Watch. "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."

Almost 19 percent of youth entering New York’s juvenile prisons are
girls, yet the facilities short-change girls by denying them access to
essential educational services. Girls complain they have long periods of
time, particularly on weekends, in which they are kept in their rooms and
given nothing constructive to do.

"Boys receive vocational education including engine repair and food
preparation courses leading to nationally recognized certifications, but
girls held in the same facility or just across the street are barred from
these classes," said Lenora Lapidus, director of the ACLU Women's Rights
Project. "New York is enforcing outdated gender stereotypes and young
women are being denied the chance to develop skills they need to survive
in the outside world."

The majority of girls in the Tryon and Lansing facilities are 15- or
16-years-old, although some are as young as 12. Almost 73 percent are
African American or Hispanic, and many come from poorer neighborhoods in
New York City. The information available to Human Rights Watch and the
ACLU suggests that the majority of girls who are locked up in Tryon and
Lansing have suffered past physical and sexual abuse, and that many need
mental health care as well as treatment for drug and alcohol addiction.
Yet New York fails to deliver adequate mental health and treatment
services to all the girls who need them, and seems more determined to
maintain a punitive environment than to provide support and therapeutic
care, said the organizations. Although the two facilities ostensibly house
girls in security classifications that range from low-security
'non-secure' to high-security 'medium secure' and 'secure,' the conditions
are essentially the same.

The problems identified in the report are not limited to New York alone.
Nationally more than 95,000 children are in the custody of juvenile
justice agencies -- over 4,000 of them in New York. The proportion of
girls among incarcerated youth in New York has grown from 14 percent in
the mid-1990s to almost 19 percent in 2004.

Today Human Rights Watch and the ACLU called upon New York to drastically
curtail the use of the face-down 'restraint' procedure and immediately
revise its restraint policies to comply with human rights norms. OCFS must
also comply with its own regulations concerning facilities oversight. In
view of the findings detailed in "Custody and Control," Human Rights Watch
and the ACLU recommend that New York move urgently to ensure that
conditions of confinement for girls comply with federal and state laws and
international standards.

"New York must change its practices for the sake of these girls' futures,"
said Lewis.

Testimony from Incarcerated Girls: 

"Staff here do restraints and they do it bad. I been restrained two times
during my stay here and they do it to hurt you. And if you don't get along
with that staff then they hurt you, like when I got restrained they had
messed up my face real bad, they broke someone's arm before, busted my
lip, that's one thing I don't like about here. ... I just think they
shouldn't touch us 'cause us kids get hurt real bad."
-- Letter from Felicia H., who was 17-years-old when confined in
Tryon 

"If you're gay they think you think you're a man, so they restrain you
harder. They have an attitude of 'If you want to be a man, I'll restrain
you like a man.' That place was unstable. I was restrained 10 or 12
times." -- Testimony of Devon A., who was 15-years-old when confined in
Lansing

"They lock us up so far from home. How are our parents supposed to come
see us? They're not so fortunate to be able to go all the way upstate. My
family never came. It was too far. And my aunt had a little baby."
-- Testimony of Janine Y., who was in her teens when confined in
Tryon

Human Rights Watch Press release