{"id":2044,"date":"2006-01-02T00:47:11","date_gmt":"2006-01-02T07:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/01\/02\/new-york-to-shut-down-jail-for-gays-and-trangenders\/"},"modified":"2006-01-02T00:47:11","modified_gmt":"2006-01-02T07:47:11","slug":"new-york-to-shut-down-jail-for-gays-and-trangenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2044","title":{"rendered":"New York To Shut Down Jail For Gays And Trangenders"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York’s Rikers Island has long had a separate unit for gay and transgender prisoners, intended to protect those prisoners from abuses from the rest of the prison population. According to The New York Times, the unit is now scheduled to be shut down<\/a>. Instead, gay and transgender prisoners who feel endangered can apply to be put in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.<\/p>\n

Though originally intended to promote safety, gay housing became a dangerous wing at Rikers because it mixed weaker inmates seeking protection with violence-prone inmates seeking to prey on them, Mr. Horn said. Some inmates who were not gay, he added, would request to be placed in the unit as a way to avoid their enemies in the general population, or to take advantage of a group they perceived as weak.[…]<\/p>\n

The elimination of special housing for gay and transgender inmates has outraged some critics, who say that Mr. Horn’s new policy essentially punishes pretrial detainees, who have not been convicted of any crime, for their sexual orientation. It also forces these inmates, their advocates say, to choose between the possibility of being abused in the general population or being locked up alone for 23 hours a day.<\/p>\n

“This is not a change for the benefit of the prisoners, this is a change for the benefit of the administration,” said Carrie Davis, a social worker at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center in New York, whose clients include former Rikers inmates. “What they’re saying is, people who by virtue of immutable physical characteristics are going to be put in 23-hour lockdown,” she added. “Does that sound fair?”<\/p><\/div>\n

I have to admit, I’m suspicious of the claim that the only reason to eliminate the special unit is concern for the safety of gay and trans prisoners; it hardly seems likely that they’d be safer in the general population. Furthermore, since applying to live in the unit was voluntary, why were any trans or gay prisoners applying to live there if they would have been safer in the general population?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New York’s Rikers Island has long had a separate unit for gay and transgender prisoners, intended to protect those prisoners from abuses from the rest of the prison population. According to The New York Times, the unit is now scheduled … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lesbian-gay-bi-trans-and-queer-issues","category-transsexual-and-transgender-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}