nysprod
11-19-2014, 03:35 AM
Rikers Island to launch unit for transgender inmates
The new voluntary housing unit will have 30 beds while officials said the correctional facility could be housing up to 35 transgender inmates at any given time.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2015262.1416345786!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/nyc-prison-fight.jpg
Transgender inmates at Rikers Island now have a unit to call their own, officials said Tuesday.
The New York City Department of Correction plans to open a special housing unit for transgender women.
The unit, which is scheduled to open this week, is designed to offer transgender women a "safe and respectful separation from the general population along with access to medical and mental health care," according to Department of Correction Commissioner Joe Ponte.
“Because inmates are not all alike, the department is creating specialized housing for many specific inmate groups," Ponte said. "Just as adolescents, young adults, and mentally ill inmates have specialized needs, so do men who identify as women."
Transgender women were men at birth who now identify themselves as women.
At any given time, Rikers Island houses up to 35 transgender inmates, officials said.
The new unit will have 30 beds.
It’s a voluntary unit, so if a transgender inmate does not want to be separated from the general population, she doesn’t have to, officials said.
The new unit comes amid criticism that jail administrators propagated a deep-seated culture of violence and excessive and inappropriate solitary confinement of teenage inmates.
The new voluntary housing unit will have 30 beds while officials said the correctional facility could be housing up to 35 transgender inmates at any given time.
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.2015262.1416345786!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/nyc-prison-fight.jpg
Transgender inmates at Rikers Island now have a unit to call their own, officials said Tuesday.
The New York City Department of Correction plans to open a special housing unit for transgender women.
The unit, which is scheduled to open this week, is designed to offer transgender women a "safe and respectful separation from the general population along with access to medical and mental health care," according to Department of Correction Commissioner Joe Ponte.
“Because inmates are not all alike, the department is creating specialized housing for many specific inmate groups," Ponte said. "Just as adolescents, young adults, and mentally ill inmates have specialized needs, so do men who identify as women."
Transgender women were men at birth who now identify themselves as women.
At any given time, Rikers Island houses up to 35 transgender inmates, officials said.
The new unit will have 30 beds.
It’s a voluntary unit, so if a transgender inmate does not want to be separated from the general population, she doesn’t have to, officials said.
The new unit comes amid criticism that jail administrators propagated a deep-seated culture of violence and excessive and inappropriate solitary confinement of teenage inmates.