incredible...
Posted: 5/27/2003, 11:55 am
wow.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/147/m ... ble+.shtml
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Report says legal system fails girls in trouble
By Francie Latour, Globe Staff, 5/27/2003
On a Dorchester street, a 58-year-old man lay stabbed in the head and chest, one of his sons bleeding from his side, another son with broken teeth -- all victims, police say, of an attack by two girls, one 15, the other 11.
At a Boston public school, eight middle-school girls, some as young as 12, are the focus of a state investigation after alleged attacks on classmates so brutal that one suffered a broken arm.
And in Brockton, an overachieving high school senior with frustrated dreams steps into a courtroom for the first time on charges of murder and arson, after police say she doused her parents' home with gasoline and set it ablaze as they slept.
As a recent spate of high-profile crimes around the state focuses attention on delinquency among girls, a national report by a Boston-based advocacy group has found that despite a decade-old federal mandate requiring states to improve juvenile services along gender lines, the justice system continues to fail girls.
According to the report released earlier this month, the first of three by the Girls Justice Initiative, nearly 90 percent of the 118 juvenile defense attorneys and nearly two-thirds of the 92 juvenile court judges surveyed found that female juvenile programs were inadequate, with gaps in the services most likely to keep girls from becoming chronic, violent offenders.
More than half of the judges and 72 percent of the lawyers polled said job training was lacking, and in many cases, the report found, judges and lawyers who wanted to point girls toward vocational training didn't know where to look.
A majority of judges and attorneys also said that detention facilities were ill-equipped to deal with pregnant girls and young mothers.
And 85 percent of the attorneys along with 64 percent of judges agreed that mental health programs have failed to properly diagnose or treat a female population that has high rates of sexual abuse and other trauma -- concerns that are still reverberating in Boston, after three teenage girls in April attempted suicide while in Department of Youth Services custody.
''There's been an unprecedented rise with girls in the criminal justice system, and there has been a significant increase in attention to that,'' said Francine Sherman, who directs the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project at Boston College Law School and spearheaded the report. Sherman will present her findings at a forum at The Boston Foundation on Friday.
Since 1992, when an increase in female juvenile crime led the Department of Justice's juvenile branch to require that states create gender-specific programs, the issue has been getting more attention, Sherman said.
''But is it translating into real concrete changes for girls?'' Sherman asked. ''I think these judges and girls and lawyers would say no.''
In the report, researchers conducted interviews with about 50 girls in the criminal justice system nationwide. In Massachusetts, where some of the interviews were done, the percentage of girls in custody has doubled from 8 percent a decade ago to about 16 percent today. Mary Ellen Mastrorilli, deputy superintendent for the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, said that to keep a growing number of girls from flooding adult prisons, female-based models for punishment and intervention have to be developed.
''What we see with girls and women is that often, their pathways to crime are different than with boys and men,'' said Mastrorilli, who is participating in the Boston Foundation panel. ''It's not unusual for a girl to be running away from abuse and victimization.''
With today's harsh drug laws, she said, ''we see more girls and women being targeted by law enforcement. As a result, the numbers of females in the system are soaring.''
<b>''What makes women and girls unique,'' she said, ''is that they are not only criminals. They are criminals and victims as well. The programming needs to address that.'' </b>
In addition to exposing deep, sustained flaws in services for girls, the report also raises questions about whether changes in the way police agencies respond to domestic violence reports have led to unintended consequences for girls.
In the past 20 years, the increase in assault arrests for girls nationally has far outpaced that of boys, according to the study.
Though domestic violence policies are largely aimed at male batterers and the power imbalance between men and women, Sherman said, ''a lot of the violence that occurs with girls occurs at home. The girl grabs a fork and stabs a boyfriend in the arm, or an aunt in the arm, that's very common.
''. . .Because there is a zero tolerance for violence in the home, it's been criminalized across the board. But in a lot of the girls' cases these are social service problems . . . not problems solved by prosecutions.''
The recent alleged attacks by girls in the state, youth advocates say, reveal what is at stake if intervention in the lives of at-risk girls does not get to them in time.
The March 26 street attack on Emmanuel Magbagbeole and his two sons by a 15-year-old and 11-year-old girl left the father and one son in surgery with serious injuries. They were attacked hours after they had accompanied the younger son back to the scene where he had been beaten for money. The older girl, who was charged with the stabbing, faces two assault charges, a weapons charge, and a charge of armed robbery.
Less than a month after that attack, 10 current and former black and Hispanic students at the Grover Cleveland Middle School in Dorchester, including eight girls, were targeted in a state civil rights complaint, allegedly for assaulting white students as well as refugee students from the Middle East and Africa.
The next day, on April 18, 17-year-old Frances Choy was charged with dousing her parent's home with gasoline and setting a fire. She had called 911 in time to rescue herself and her nephew, who is also charged. According to police, Frances had promised her nephew money to help set the fire and free her from her strict parents, who had forbidden her from living with her boyfriend or moving away to attend college.
''We have to provide vehicles for girls to be empowered to think that they can control their destiny,'' said Larry Mayes, who runs sports programs for girls and is organizing a girl-run radio station out of the Log School, an alternative school in Dorchester. ''And it's particularly acute for girls in an urban context. They need to know that they are not trapped.''
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well, i for one, cannot believe a newspaper would run this kind of ridiculous, misandrist pheminazi bullshit on their front page.
i encourage you all to write strongly worded letters.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/147/m ... ble+.shtml
--------
Report says legal system fails girls in trouble
By Francie Latour, Globe Staff, 5/27/2003
On a Dorchester street, a 58-year-old man lay stabbed in the head and chest, one of his sons bleeding from his side, another son with broken teeth -- all victims, police say, of an attack by two girls, one 15, the other 11.
At a Boston public school, eight middle-school girls, some as young as 12, are the focus of a state investigation after alleged attacks on classmates so brutal that one suffered a broken arm.
And in Brockton, an overachieving high school senior with frustrated dreams steps into a courtroom for the first time on charges of murder and arson, after police say she doused her parents' home with gasoline and set it ablaze as they slept.
As a recent spate of high-profile crimes around the state focuses attention on delinquency among girls, a national report by a Boston-based advocacy group has found that despite a decade-old federal mandate requiring states to improve juvenile services along gender lines, the justice system continues to fail girls.
According to the report released earlier this month, the first of three by the Girls Justice Initiative, nearly 90 percent of the 118 juvenile defense attorneys and nearly two-thirds of the 92 juvenile court judges surveyed found that female juvenile programs were inadequate, with gaps in the services most likely to keep girls from becoming chronic, violent offenders.
More than half of the judges and 72 percent of the lawyers polled said job training was lacking, and in many cases, the report found, judges and lawyers who wanted to point girls toward vocational training didn't know where to look.
A majority of judges and attorneys also said that detention facilities were ill-equipped to deal with pregnant girls and young mothers.
And 85 percent of the attorneys along with 64 percent of judges agreed that mental health programs have failed to properly diagnose or treat a female population that has high rates of sexual abuse and other trauma -- concerns that are still reverberating in Boston, after three teenage girls in April attempted suicide while in Department of Youth Services custody.
''There's been an unprecedented rise with girls in the criminal justice system, and there has been a significant increase in attention to that,'' said Francine Sherman, who directs the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project at Boston College Law School and spearheaded the report. Sherman will present her findings at a forum at The Boston Foundation on Friday.
Since 1992, when an increase in female juvenile crime led the Department of Justice's juvenile branch to require that states create gender-specific programs, the issue has been getting more attention, Sherman said.
''But is it translating into real concrete changes for girls?'' Sherman asked. ''I think these judges and girls and lawyers would say no.''
In the report, researchers conducted interviews with about 50 girls in the criminal justice system nationwide. In Massachusetts, where some of the interviews were done, the percentage of girls in custody has doubled from 8 percent a decade ago to about 16 percent today. Mary Ellen Mastrorilli, deputy superintendent for the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, said that to keep a growing number of girls from flooding adult prisons, female-based models for punishment and intervention have to be developed.
''What we see with girls and women is that often, their pathways to crime are different than with boys and men,'' said Mastrorilli, who is participating in the Boston Foundation panel. ''It's not unusual for a girl to be running away from abuse and victimization.''
With today's harsh drug laws, she said, ''we see more girls and women being targeted by law enforcement. As a result, the numbers of females in the system are soaring.''
<b>''What makes women and girls unique,'' she said, ''is that they are not only criminals. They are criminals and victims as well. The programming needs to address that.'' </b>
In addition to exposing deep, sustained flaws in services for girls, the report also raises questions about whether changes in the way police agencies respond to domestic violence reports have led to unintended consequences for girls.
In the past 20 years, the increase in assault arrests for girls nationally has far outpaced that of boys, according to the study.
Though domestic violence policies are largely aimed at male batterers and the power imbalance between men and women, Sherman said, ''a lot of the violence that occurs with girls occurs at home. The girl grabs a fork and stabs a boyfriend in the arm, or an aunt in the arm, that's very common.
''. . .Because there is a zero tolerance for violence in the home, it's been criminalized across the board. But in a lot of the girls' cases these are social service problems . . . not problems solved by prosecutions.''
The recent alleged attacks by girls in the state, youth advocates say, reveal what is at stake if intervention in the lives of at-risk girls does not get to them in time.
The March 26 street attack on Emmanuel Magbagbeole and his two sons by a 15-year-old and 11-year-old girl left the father and one son in surgery with serious injuries. They were attacked hours after they had accompanied the younger son back to the scene where he had been beaten for money. The older girl, who was charged with the stabbing, faces two assault charges, a weapons charge, and a charge of armed robbery.
Less than a month after that attack, 10 current and former black and Hispanic students at the Grover Cleveland Middle School in Dorchester, including eight girls, were targeted in a state civil rights complaint, allegedly for assaulting white students as well as refugee students from the Middle East and Africa.
The next day, on April 18, 17-year-old Frances Choy was charged with dousing her parent's home with gasoline and setting a fire. She had called 911 in time to rescue herself and her nephew, who is also charged. According to police, Frances had promised her nephew money to help set the fire and free her from her strict parents, who had forbidden her from living with her boyfriend or moving away to attend college.
''We have to provide vehicles for girls to be empowered to think that they can control their destiny,'' said Larry Mayes, who runs sports programs for girls and is organizing a girl-run radio station out of the Log School, an alternative school in Dorchester. ''And it's particularly acute for girls in an urban context. They need to know that they are not trapped.''
--------------
well, i for one, cannot believe a newspaper would run this kind of ridiculous, misandrist pheminazi bullshit on their front page.
i encourage you all to write strongly worded letters.
that's not right, not right at all
