LGBTQ youth and young adults: An individual standing in the center of six people, all with their backs to the camera, holds in the air a large gay pride flag with stripes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple flag that symbolizes gay pride.

Litigation and innovation involving LGBTQ juveniles, a disproportionately larger group

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Tailor-made services are important for many justice-involved LGBTQ youth and young adults their advocates contend, because those individuals’ encounters with law enforcement, courts, correctional and other agencies often are in stark contrast to how their heterosexual peers navigate the justice system and society in general.

I Was a Kid in Solitary Confinement

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My young parents didn’t have the skill sets to properly raise me, which at a young age caused me to search for acceptance in other places. I began running away at the age of 13 and quickly got heavily involved in drug use.

In Prison, A Boy’s Horrible Life

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Rape is not sex. No matter how superficially similar the acts might seem, they are fundamentally different. Most reasonable people would agree, and in our society rape is considered a crime. There is one place where things are different though: prison. Somehow, at least to many people, rapes that take place in that context are somehow different.

Policy Experts Address the Challenges Facing LGBT Youth in Lockup

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OJJDP Webinar examines difficulties in providing adequate services to detained LGBT populations
“Why are we focused on LGBTQI youth all of a sudden?” said Mykel Selph, director of the Office of Girls & Gender at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) in Illinois. The DePaul University adjunct professor answered her own inquiry by bringing up findings from a 2010 report that estimates that approximately 15 percent of incarcerated youth self-identify as LGBT and/or gender nonconforming. According to Selph, that means that as many as 40 juveniles in Cook County’s JTDC right now are part of a detained population she believes are often “largely invisible” in the eyes of most policymakers. Selph was one of three speakers presenting information at Tuesday’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Webinar, titled Understanding the Importance of Implementing an Effective Justice System Response for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Intersex (LGBTQI) Youth in Custody. The presentation, hosted by the National Training & Technical Assistance Center, is the third Webinar in the “Understanding and Overcoming the Challenges Faced by LGBTQI Youth” series.