If you advocate for youth in the juvenile justice system, chances are you are representing youth who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity (LGBTQ).
According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, there are more than 96,000 youth detained in the juvenile justice system.1 While it is impossible to precisely determine the number of LGBTQ youth in this system at any one moment, recent studies suggest that these youth make up from 4–10% of the total detained youth population.2 The actual percentage may be higher as LGBTQ youth are over-represented in populations that are more likely to be involved in the juvenile justice system.3
Many of these youth have entered the system as a direct result of the discrimination and lack of support they have encountered because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.4 Once in the system, LGBTQ youth are too often subject to further discrimination or harassment at the hands of juvenile justice staff.5
Lack of Acceptance, Abuse Lead to Juvenile Justice System
In general, because of homophobia and transphobia in their homes, schools and social settings, LGBTQ youth enter the juvenile justice system at a disproportionate rate. One study estimates that 26% of LGBTQ youth were forced to leave their families of origin as a result of conflicts with their parents regarding their sexual orientation or gender identity.6 In a separate study, more than 30% of LGBTQ youth reported suffering physical violence at the hands of a family member after coming out.7
Because of a lack of acceptance and abuse, many LGBTQ youth are removed from their homes or found to be “throwaways” by child protection agencies and placed in out-of-home care. In a terrible irony, once in out-of-home placement, more than 75% of these youth are subjected to additional anti-LGBTQ abuse and discrimination.8
As a result, many LGBTQ youth drop out of the system altogether, preferring to live on the street rather than in homophobic and transphobic settings where they are in danger of harassment or violence. The National Network of Runaway and Youth Services estimates that up to 40% of youth who become homeless each year are LGBTQ.9
These conditions put LGBTQ youth at a higher risk of substance abuse and suicide.10 Many of the LGBTQ youth in the juvenile justice system were arrested for committing non-violent survival crimes, such as prostitution and shoplifting, and were often living on the streets at the time of the offense.11 Some LGBTQ youth enter the system after having been inappropriately detained as “sex offenders” merely for engaging in consensual, age-appropriate, same-sex conduct.
Mistreatment Persists in System
Once in the juvenile justice system, LGBTQ youth are often neglected and/or discriminated against by facility staff and peers, a situation compounded by inadequate policies, protections, support services and staff sensitivity.
Many LGBTQ youth in the juvenile justice system experience verbal harassment and physical or sexual abuse because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. “Most people [in here] are stupid. They treat me like I am not human. They call me f***** and tell me that I do not have a life.”12
This abuse is perpetrated not only by youth peers, but also by facility staff and social workers. When the abuse is between peers, it is either condoned by facility staff or goes unchallenged. “I left in the morning for school. When I came back to go to my room, somebody had spray painted the word f***** on the door. … The staff didn’t do nothing much but laugh when I told them.”13
When LGBTQ youth are harassed or discriminated against, juvenile justice facilities sometimes respond by moving the LGBTQ youth to another — often more restrictive — facility or by isolating them, rather than addressing the underlying homophobia.14 This isolation not only reinforces the notion that the LGBTQ youth is bad or to blame for harassment directed at them, but can also result in further denial of access to resources and support.
LGBTQ youth are sometimes subjected to “reparative” or “conversion” therapy (overt attempts to change one’s sexual orientation) by juvenile justice officers and/or social workers. “Two of the staff members wanted to ‘help’ me. ... I was told that 2,000 years ago, I would have been stoned to death ... they quoted the Bible to me, told me I would never have true sexual satisfaction, and asked me if I didn’t want a man’s strong arms around me ... .”15
Lack of awareness of LGBTQ issues among judges and attorneys representing these youth also leads to more frequent sentencing of LGBTQ youth to lock-down programs rather than to social reformative programs.16
Lawyers and judges involved in the lives of LGBTQ youth in the juvenile justice system have an enormous opportunity to influence many of these conditions for the better. As more attention slowly focuses on the needs of LGBTQ youth in the juvenile justice system, more and more resources are available to assist attorneys representing youth in Washington.
As a supplement to the great work of other organizations, QLaw: the GLBT Bar Association of Washington, has created a new project aimed at raising awareness of the issues facing out-of-home LGBTQ youth in Washington. Juvenile justice advocates of all kinds are encouraged to contact QLaw with questions about their representation of LGBTQ youth or with ideas about how to improve the treatment of LGBTQ youth in the system.
Adapted from the original and reprinted here with the permission of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Jody Marksamer is a staff attorney and director of NCLR’s Youth Project. Michael Heath is the chair of the GLBT Bar Association of Washington’s At-Risk Youth Project. For more information, visit http://www.nclrights.org or contact Heath at AtRiskYouth@q-law.org.
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1 See Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement Databook, available at http://ojjdp.ncjrs. org/ojstatbb/cjrp/asp/Age_Sex.asp.
2 See, e.g., Urban Justice Center, Justice for All? A Report on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Youth in the New York Juvenile Justice System 26 (2001) (hereinafter Justice for All).
3 See id. at 6–7.
4 See id.
5 Mary Curtin, Lesbian and Bisexual Girls in the Juvenile Justice System, 19 Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 285 (2002); Justice for All.
6 See Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Youth in the Margins: A Report on the Unmet Needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Adolescents in Foster Care 11(2001) (hereinafter Youth in the Margins); National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Anti-Gay/Lesbian Victimization (1984).
7 Youth in the Margins at 11.
8 See Justice for All at 16 (citing Joint Task Force of New York City’s Child Welfare Administration and the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies, Improving Services for Gay and Lesbian Youth in NYC’s Child Welfare System: A Task Force Report (1994)).
9 See Youth in the Margins at 11; Justice for All at 1.
10 Gary Remafedi, Adolescent Homosexuality: Psychological and Medical Implications, 79 Pediatrics 331 (1987).
11 See Justice for All at 18–20.
12 See id. at 33 (citing anonymous youth, personal interview, January 2001).
13 Al Desetta, In the System and In the Life: A Guide for Teens and Staff to the Gay Experience in Foster Care, 50 (2003).
14 Justice for All at 30.
15 Colleen Sullivan, Kids, Courts and Queers: Lesbian and Gay Youth in the Juvenile Justice and Foster Care Systems, 6 Law & Sexuality 31, 35 (1996).
16 Justice for All at 31.
