Internal News Update Page
Young Latinas Behind Bars: An Alarming Trend we Must Reverse
OCTOBER 22, 2020
Gisele Castro on womensmediacenter.com
Mass incarceration is devastating African American and Latino communities, and this is by design. Systemic practices, from discrimination in employment, to ineffective school discipline policies, limit the options for the youth of these communities. These deep historical, structural, and systemic deficiencies, rooted in gender and race discrimination, over policing and the criminalization of poverty, are landing more young women behind bars.
Latinas and girls of color are being incarcerated at increasing rates. From 1997 through 2017, there was a 52% increase of Latinas, both girls and women, incarcerated nationally. Here’s why:
A lack of fundamental support for the trauma that many young women of color are experiencing may lead them to entering the system. Girls in the criminal justice system are often runaways and/or victims of physical or sexual abuse that has gone unaddressed. And unlike their male counterparts, who are typically detained over issues of public safety, adolescent girls are being arrested for violating societal expectations for their gender, such as reacting to conflicts by way of fighting.
Lack of employment opportunities for young Latinas also substantially increases their risk of exposure to the “justice” system. Research shows that the US has essentially pushed young people entirely out of the labor market. For 16, 17, and 18-year-olds, their employment rates have dropped to about half what they were a decade ago. For Latinas and young women of color, this problem is compounded because many of them need to work to contribute to their families’ expenses for essentials such as food and rent.
The onset of COVID19 has only exacerbated these problems. The multilayered crisis of COVID —including the shuttering of schools, community centers and other places of engagement and safety, and the collapse of the economy— have deeply impacted teenagers who come from underemployed or unemployed homes. This leaves many young women struggling to survive in neighborhoods that are patrolled by police the same way that officers patrol prison facilities. The harsh set of rules that these young women have to follow are being complicated further by the pandemic.
At the youth intervention nonprofit exalt, we have also witnessed this progression. In 2019, 36% of all our Latino/Latina/Latinx students were young women, compared to 19% female across all races. This is an increase of 50% from 2018, when 24% of our Latino/Latina/Latinx students were young women.
For a 16-year-old girl grappling with these heavy challenges and facing an indeterminate amount of time without the fullness of her freedom, this pressure is painful and demoralizing. When we first meet our young girls, too many of them express that they see themselves either dead or in jail.
“When we first meet our young girls, too many of them express that they see themselves either dead or in jail”
Gisele Castro, Executive Director of exalt
The age-old promise that education can be the great leveler, leading to a career that enables them to live comfortably and move upward economically – feels out of reach. But it’s not elusive if we ensure that young girls advance academically, while also providing them with options. We have evidence showing that investing in educational strategies reliably diverts vulnerable girls from the criminal justice system to professional careers pathways.
exalt’s proven model increases school engagement with 95% of alumni graduating high school, reduces recidivism to 5%, achieves a 76% sentence reduction rate, and matches 100% youth to internships into high growth sectors, like finance, technology, and health care.
This model consists of a four-and-a-half-month program of classroom education that includes works like The New Jim Crow, and workforce preparedness followed by a paid internship and alumni phase. We take this approach because these young women articulate that they lack support with real-life needs.
But we must also get to the root of this problem. This means disrupting and reversing centuries of racist policies of social control and trauma. It requires focusing on decarceration by introducing fairer sentencing, bail reform, and ensuring that our youth have the basic necessities to be contributing members of society.
“Should they secure a victory, a Biden-Harris administration must see and hear girls of color as equal and respected individuals who can identify solutions”
Gisele Castro
Should they secure a victory, a Biden-Harris administration must see and hear girls of color as equal and respected individuals who can identify solutions. Because those closest to the problem are typically in the best position to solve it.
The next administration in its first 100 days must expand on criminal justice reform by introducing fairer sentencing that eliminates barriers to employment and college access. It must also create more living wage jobs and aggressively invest in low income communities, like at the level the federal government did for the automotive bailout.
If this, as a matter of justice, is not moving, then consider the future of this nation: With the Latinx population growing rapidly, skewing younger and poised to become the tax base of many communities, it is to the benefit to invest at the front.
NYTimes | Stop Persecuting Black and Brown Girls in School
A nonprofit that works with teenagers says “sassy” attitudes are really an expression of strength. Also: The toll Covid takes on women; undocumented domestic workers.
To the Editor:
Re “Racism in the Principal’s Office: Seeking Justice for Black Girls” (front page, Oct. 2):
In New York City, in the year 2020, a girl who defends her friend in a fight can be charged with a felony for gang activity, sending her to detention and a lifetime of consequences.
Thank you for shining a light on the unfair punishment meted out in the school system to young Black and brown girls, who have for generations been the target of neglect, surveillance and punitive discipline policies for being “loud” or “threatening.”
Every day at the youth organization I run, we teach our students a survival skill: code switching. For them, changing how they present themselves to society — from body language to wardrobe to speech — can keep them alive, employed and free.
I look forward to the day when fashion choices and “sassy” attitudes are accepted for what they really are: an expression of strength, independence and spirit. I look forward to the day we stop silencing, penalizing and incarcerating our girls of color, and start listening to what they are telling us and give them the same opportunities and respect as their white or white-passing peers.
Gisele Castro
New York
The writer is executive director of Exalt, a nonprofit that works with teenagers who have been involved in the criminal justice system.
exalt's Executive Director speaks at Stand Together Conference
Gisele Castro, exalt’s Executive Director, spoke at the Stand Together Conference held in Colorado in August 2019. You can watch the video below, where she addresses fellow grantees and other funders as she speaks about the transformational work of exalt.
Response to the Death of Lesandro "Junior" Guzman
Statement by Exalt Youth (exalt) on the Safety of our Children
"Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?"
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
New York, NY - On June 20, 2018, a Bronx teenager Lesandro "Junior" Guzman was dragged from a local bodega on East 183rd Street and tragically killed by a group of young men said to be serving "street justice" for the alleged sexual assault of one of the killer's "cousins." Thing is, the killers tagged the wrong person-as if taking the law into one's own hands could ever be the right choice. That night, we lost Junior, and as a collective community our writhing hearts broke (and remain broken). But we also lost at least seven or eight other young men of color who face a different type of death behind prison bars.
Tragedies like these call us to think deeply about our culpability and accountability: What role do our communities and our organizations like exalt have in ending threats to our children's lives? How might we provide supportive structures that can protect them from both the epidemic of violence and the spate of mass incarceration? Indeed, a gang of boys threw fists and waved machetes bitterly and brutally in the night stomping out Junior's life. But where did these young men learn to devalue life (as opposed to recognizing its worth)? Where did they lose the common care that we must commit to each other, as both neighbors and as humans? Junior's life and his heartbreaking loss must force us to thoroughly and honestly consider our responsibilities to one another and to our community.
The unfortunate loss of Junior's life reminds us of our collective responsibility to provide our people alternatives to the despair at the root of such violence, should we truly wish to prevent such violent acts in the future. Indeed, the multiple systemic failures and injustices associated with the circumstances of his death - our education systems, crime processing structures, joblessness, housing precariousness, etc. - illuminate the dire need for healing and peace in our communities.
At exalt, we view our interventions as investments - both in the lives of court-involved youth, and in the project of disrupting the system that leads to the kinds of dehumanization that make tragedies like Junior's murder possible in the first place. We view this kind of work as not only a social obligation but also a moral imperative. As we continue to grow our impact and serve more youth, we also recognize that at the deepest levels, we must work unapologetically to humanize all our youth in the face of a system and society that consistently deprives them of opportunities to live free of fear, violence, and oppression. For this reason, it becomes vital that even in the face of a horrific loss - i.e., the loss of Junior - we must continue to catalyze participation in offering our young people - especially those who we find most vulnerable - opportunities that free their minds, provide them hope, and allow them to discern a path through pain and desperation to a better future.
The tragic killing of Junior has shaken the people of our city and country. Justice demands that we heed the call to confront the violence that afflicts our communities, so that we may begin the process of healing. There is no real expression of consolation at this time. For now, we have only questions that we must soon address because "the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence/Than the strong man in his wrath!"
Gisele Castro
Executive Director
exalt at Google Autumn Talks!
Thanks to our Board Member Jenny Tolan, exalt performed 16 Bars: Youth (Off)Ending Justice on February 13, 2018 in celebration of Black History Month as part of Google Talks series.
16 Bars features the original writing and storytelling of young people deeply impacted by the criminal justice system. The performance was followed by a panel discussion hosted by the Black Googlers Network, and the event culminated with an invigorating round-table discussion whereexalt teens offered creative ways to confront and close the digital divide.