LGBT Youth Face Prison Abuses

[Shana A]

LGBT Youth Face Prison Abuses
By Jeffrey Gerson

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2010/07/09/LGBT_Youth_Face_Prison_Abuses/

In an article for The Nation, National Center for Lesbian Rights attorney Daniel Redman makes the case for incarcerated LGBT Youth.

In the article, child welfare and juvenile justice consultant Marty Beyer, who received her PhD in clinical/community psychology from Yale University,  is quoted explaining that problems for LGBT youth often begin long before incarceration. She states, "LGBT youth are more likely to be arrested than straight youth because they're more likely to be pushed out of their homes." Once arrested, LGBT inmates often are subjected to unnecessary pretrial detention, verbal and physical abuse from peers and guards, lockdown, attempts at religious antigay conversion, and in some cases, even orchestrated attacks. As one minor from the California system tells, ""a female staff member set up a bisexual youth and let straight guys into his room to beat him up. I woke up and saw blood on the walls and on the ground."