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I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body. - Charles Dickens on solitary confinement, American Notes, 1842

"[In security] you're locked up in cells, and you're by yourself all day, and it's really boring. That's how people hurt themselves. When you're out on the dorm with a whole bunch of girls, it's better 'cause you're not locked up in a little room all the time by yourself." "The strip searches you take all your clothes off, you squat and cough. They make us become stark naked. To me it's an invasion of our privacy." "You go to security - you get strip searched. Contraband searches on the dorm - you get strip searched. If they think you have a note from school - you get strip searched." "On Saturdays we get to sit in the day room for an hour and talk, and that's only if we haven't gotten in trouble. And then after that we are supposed to go outside for an hour but we barely ever do." "People are always trying to run [away]. I was asked why would I try to run - the only reason I could think of is to feel free for a minute, like you can turn this way if you want to, and turn that way when you want to, and stop and go and look wherever you want to." "Some people will climb the fence but they know they can't make it over that top curved part." "Now people are finding new places [to sit outside]. It's just to feel freedom... to feel free for a minute." "After you get back from visitation they strip search you, I guess to check if you have money or food on you. I don't know what money or food would do to harm but it's considered contraband." "She threw me on the floor and had my whole mouth busted open and I was pouring out blood and it didn't stop bleeding and my nose was bleeding. And the staff threaten you when they restrain you... they'll fucking break your legs. You know how they have your legs, they be twisting and stuff until you tell them to stop." "If in you're in security, you have to eat with your fingers, if you're on SA [suicide alert]. They don't give you anything to eat with, just your fingers. Like if you have jelly you're eating like a dog basically, if you're on SA." "We're locked up in our rooms - they have the doors closed and they have a locking system, this locking power control system." "You can't even look outside because the windows are covered. You feel like you're going to go crazy." "I don't like being alone. It scares me. I feel like the room is getting smaller, the door is locked and I feel trapped. I feel panicky and anxious. I sit and rock sometimes. I don't like to be by myself." "Staff had been talking bad about me so I drank bleach trying to go get rid of myself. I was supposed to be released that day... that's exactly why I drank the bleach is because that was my release day and I couldn't go home and all the stuff that was going on, trying to get rid of my flashbacks.... When I was down there [on security] they hardly never clean the rooms over there.... I started throwing up and they made me sit in the room with the throw-up for twenty four hours... I was foaming at the mouth because they would not let me clean it up and I kept throwing up and there was nothing left to throw up." "In security they have the rooms freezing cold. They make you stay in nothing but your pants and shirt. If you get admitted you wear black shorts and an orange shirt. I was there until 7:00 - I went there around 3:30 - and it was literally freezing in the room, and they don't care. Even during the winter they keep the air conditioner on." "When I come to security, I don't think it's right that they don't give us mattresses." "It's like lonely, you go crazy in there 'cause you're just like in there by yourself. It's all cold, and the food gets ugly and you can smell the people. You don't want to eat, and it's just nasty. You're not even wearing underclothes. It's dirty in there. It's nasty." "You don't get that much privacy.... They're out there with just one blanket and bare mattress and lights on continuously. Thank god I haven't been on SA [suicide alert]." "I got hit in the face by the staff. He threw me up against the wall and it busted my nose and I started bleeding, and then I was bleeding on the floor. He slammed me on the floor and he rubbed my face against the floor and I had red marks going all across my face and I had bruises from wherever he gripped me." "If we don't agree to get on the floor they bring the shield in, like a police shield. They come in with the shield, they ram you against the wall, and then they throw you on the floor. I got my chin busted open - I had to get four stitches and I got my tooth chipped." "If you don't comply with the restraint up here they use pepper spray on you, and sometimes even if you comply with it they still spray you." "If you're on SA [suicide alert] when they restrain you, they put a helmet on you. You can't even breathe out of the helmet. And they put a spit mask over you sometimes. You can't even really breathe." "In security if you act up they tie you on the ground. Leather restraints, it's like handcuffs but it's not, and they put a belt around you, they make you lay on the floor with your hands behind your back tightened in that leather restraint and it's very tight." "Sometimes if you act up they'll use the metal restraints, which is like handcuffs on your ankles. You lay on the floor for like four hours." "When you're on suicide alert they make you wear these drapes, which is very vulgar because it shows everything. My mom calls it a mattress. It's very thick, they have blue or green. You have to Velcro the straps on and it opens up." "My meds is not really working. I was on Depakote, Clonidine, and Abilify. They took me off that and now I'm on Ritalin. They know I can't have Ritalin. My mom told them that if I have Ritalin, I'll start acting stupid, I start cutting on myself, and I already did it one time, see my scars? They're healing but they're not healing all the way. I tried to cut this vein open. I told them that I'm not allowed to have Ritalin and it's even in my chart. But I'm on Depakote, Abilify, Clonidine...." "The SA system is not at all what you would call protective toward an SA person. It stands for 'suicide alert,' but staff make fun of it and call it 'stupid alert' or 'seeking attention alert,' because they think that when we cut ourselves or when we try to commit suicide that we're seeking attention even though we're going through hard times." "Sometimes we'll find metal shavings in our food from the can opener, and stuff like that." "There's bugs and hair in the food and yesterday I found a cockroach in my food. I couldn't even eat." "Male staff sometimes do the shower routine. You have a divider but they have one of those security mirrors and can see us naked and everything. The same with the restroom stalls - you don't have a door to keep privacy." "Instantly you get strip searched when you go to security, make sure you don't have anything you're not supposed to have... like letters, pens and stuff.... Take everything off, squat, cough. It's cold, dirty in security, it's dirty on the dorms, exposing your body to all that, staff are looking you." "They was gonna strip me out my clothes, but I was like, "I'll take them off myself." And they stood outside the door until I took off all my clothes." "We can only have visitation once a week. You get two hours if you're on the dorm, and one hour if you're off the dorm. You talk to them on the phone through glass. No physical contact. My mom came the other day and said you better hurry up and go to Sunday school 'cause I don't like seeing you behind glass."

(Quotes from girls incarcerated at the Brownwood prison."Security" is a euphemism used for solitary confinement.)

Girls Confined to Youth Prisons in the United States

There are currently more than 14,000 girls incarcerated in the United States, a number that has been rapidly increasing in recent decades. Most of these girls are arrested for minor, nonviolent offenses and probation violations. Locked up under the guise of rehabilitation, girls nationwide – the vast majority of whom have been sexually and/or physically abused – are subjected to punitive solitary confinement, routine strip searches, and other forms of abuse. Meanwhile, they are denied the mental health care, education, and social services they need. Far from helping girls cope with the trauma they have suffered, youth prisons re-traumatize them and further impede their rehabilitation.

On June 12, 2008 the ACLU filed a class action lawsuit challenging these inhumane practices at the Brownwood State School, a youth prison in central Texas.

READ PROFILES of the five courageous girls who are confronting the oppressive conditions and standing up for their rights
READ THE PRESS RELEASE
READ THE COMPLAINT

Keesha,* a 16-year-old girl at Brownwood, talks about the invasiveness of strip searches, which are conducted to make sure girls aren't smuggling things like pens and notes. play mp3 >>

Carley,* a 17-year-old girl at Brownwood, talks about the frequent strip searches she and the other girls at the Brownwood facility are subjected to. play mp3 >>

Tiffany,* an 18-year-old girl at the Victoria County Juvenile Justice Center in Texas, talks about being stripped when going into a padded cell and having her glasses, which she is heavily dependent on, taken away. play mp3 >>

Keesha talks about the punitive SA (suicide alert) program, designed to monitor girls who have expressed suicidal feelings. play mp3 >>

> A Blueprint for Meeting the Needs of Girls in TYC Custody (5/24/2007)
> Custody and Control: Conditions of Confinement in New York's Juvenile Prisons for Girls
> Incarcerated Girls "Testify" at U.S. Social Forum (6/28/2007)
> Abused at Home, Abused by the System: Girls and the Juvenile Justice System
> Fact Sheet: Girls in the Juvenile Justice System