Cook County Juvenile Detention Center Adopts LGBTQ Policy

Two years ago, Cook County Jail instituted a transgender policy, but transgender youth face additional obstacles that can make policy change tricky. This article details the efforts of Mykel Selph, director of the Office of Girls and Gender at Cook County’s Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC), to improve the realities facing LGBTQ youth detained by Cook County.

Two years ago, Cook County Jail instituted a transgender policy, but transgender youth face additional obstacles that can make policy change tricky. This article details the efforts of Mykel Selph, director of the Office of Girls and Gender at Cook County’s Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC), to improve the realities facing LGBTQ youth detained by Cook County. According to research by Angela Irvine, research director at NCCD, LGBT youth make up at least 15 percent of the juvenile detention population and LGBT youth in detention were twice as likely as straight kids to have been removed from their homes by social workers, put in group homes or to have experienced homelessness.

Click here to read the article and learn more about JTDC’s policy as well as Irvine’s research.

For more information about LGBT youth projects at NCCD, click here.