Child advocates are calling on Connecticut lawmakers to set up a special panel to investigate the treatment of children committed to the care of the Department of Children and Families for breaking the law.
juvenile justice
Posted inEducation
Questions (and answers) about CT’s new girls’ incarceration unit
“There are girls that really very easily can fill these 10 beds,” said Joette Katz, commissioner of the state Department of Children and Families.
Posted inEducation
New locked girls’ facility in CT spurs questions about DCF’s direction (Part 2)
A group of prominent state lawmakers are not convinced that relying on locked facilities, which is the direction DCF seems to be headed in, is what’s best for these young offenders,
Posted inEducation
Boys in jail in Connecticut at a 10-year high (Part 1)
As DCF appears to be increasingly dependent on locked facilities to deal with troubled juveniles, some lawmakers are expressing concern about the planned new girls’ facility, and advocates and some lawyers are questioning the direction the state is heading.
Posted inEducation
Will locking up troubled girls help? State aims to find out with new Middletown facility
The new girls detention facility in Middletown The state’s child welfare agency will open a new state-run facility in January to lock up girls who break the law –- a decision that has generated mixed reactions from those who work most closely with these children. The facility that the Department of Children and Families will […]
Posted inEducation
DCF wants to open new facility in Middletown to incarcerate girls
The state’s child welfare agency is gearing up to open a new state-run facility in Middletown to incarcerate girls who break the law, a move that child advocates say is troubling. “I wish we didn’t need this,” Joette Katz, commissioner of the Department of Children and Families, told private providers last month when announcing the […]
Posted inEducation, Health
Supreme Court: DCF gets to decide placement for delinquent children
The Connecticut Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that judges can no longer send children who break the law to treatment facilities out of state. The decision follows a move by state legislators last month to change the law to make clear who they want making these decisions — the commissioner of the Department of Children […]
Posted inEducation
Sending children to live out-of-state: Whose decision is it?
Unconvinced that Connecticut boys who have broken the law are being properly treated when they are sent to live at Glen Mills School in Pennsylvania for rehabilitation, officials at the state’s child welfare agency have decided to stop sending children there. “That’s it, we’re done,” Department of Children and Families Commissioner Joette Katz told a […]
Posted inEducation
17-year-olds to be treated as children by courts
Last week, a 17-year-old who got into a fight or was caught stealing faced serious jail time if convicted. That is no longer the case, effective today. Under a new state law, teenagers convicted of non-felony offenses will be provided with a range of community-based treatments, rather than automatically being sent to the adult court system […]