On May 24, activists and community members from throughout the Northeast gathered in Hartford, Conn., to protest the incarceration of 16-year-old “Jane Doe,” a transgender Latina girl imprisoned at York Correctional Facility despite not being charged with a crime. Doe has been in solitary confinement for almost two months. After enduring a lifetime of sexual and physical abuse from Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families, she is still not receiving the appropriate rehabilitation services that she needs. Instead, DCF and the state are covering up their years of abuse by blaming and torturing the victim.
In response, over 70 people marched in Hartford to demand justice for Jane Doe: her immediate release from prison, placement into a safe, therapeutic home and the repeal of statute 17a-12, which allows DCF to imprison children. Working in partnership with Doe’s lawyer, as well as LGBTQ rights groups, youth groups and prison abolitionists, people from a wide variety of communities took to the streets and marched from Hartford’s Department of Children and Families headquarters to the state Capitol building. Chanting “DCF! DOC! Jane Doe must go free,” “Katz! You lied to me! Prison isn’t therapy!” and “What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!” protesters filled the Capitol premises and staged a speak-out as a follow-up to the march.
PSL member, trans rights organizer and rally chair Al Riccio was one of many who spoke outside the Capitol. “DCF is dead-set on keeping Jane in prison and defaming her character,” he said. “Why? We live in a society where there is no money for rehabilitation and mental health services. Jane has no place to go because our world does not care to give her one. Just think what we could do for our youth if instead of funding wars and occupation and prisons, we created jobs, mental health facilities, and social service programs. Just think of what we could do for girls like Jane if we staged a militant movement to fund schools and hospitals and humane mental health facilities, not prisons.”
Barbara Fair of My Brother’s Keeper in New Haven, a tireless community organizer fighting against racism, mass incarceration, police brutality and the drug war, spoke out against DCF’s corruption and inability to meet the needs of oppressed communities. “”DCF is supposed to be about children and families – and helping to keep them safe – and too many of these children have become very unsafe under the care of the Department of Children and Families.” A veteran from the Hartford community, who was near the Capitol and heard the rally, spoke out on behalf of his cousin. “”My cousin was transsexual. Jenny – she was a beautiful girl, a beautiful woman, a beautiful person – she was murdered a year and a half ago for no reason at all, just being herself,” he said. “And I’m also a veteran and the injustice is all around…when we’re in crisis, [the state doesn’t] want to listen to us. [They tell us to] ‘shut up and wait.’ I’m here to say that we need to unite.”
The Justice for Jane campaign has been operating under the united leadership of many individuals and organizations. It has received support from across the country and even internationally, including support from prominent trans rights and prison reform figures including Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, CeCe McDonald and Piper Kerman. The struggle for justice for Jane Doe has become representative of a broad intersection of oppressions in the capitalist U.S. — racism, sexism, transphobia, mass incarceration, victim-blaming and disenfranchisement of poor youth. The campaign will continue until Doe is released; after she is safe it will go on demanding justice for all Jane and John Does and fighting to create a system under which there are no more victims like Jane.
To voice support for Justice for Jane or get involved in organizing around the case, visit www.facebook.com/justiceforjane and www.tumblr.com/justice4jane, follow @Justice4JaneCT and use the #JusticeForJane hashtag on Twitter, or email [email protected].
