Sunday, December 30, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
DCF TRIES SHEDDING THE RACIST IMAGE WITH ANOTHER STUDY
Well. It seems as if the Department of Children and Families (DCF) is attempting to shed its image as racist by conducting another study. In spite of a class action lawsuit filed 2 years ago and numerous actions by the community and other employees, DCF has not really changed its biased policies. DCF employees of color are still disproportionally disciplined in frequency and severity as I noted in a previous article (DCF Disciplinary 2011: Harsher Penalties for People of Color).
"As a follow up to work done in State Fiscal Year 2011 related to "undoing racism" within our agency, the Department will continue expand its consultation relationship with two highly qualified individuals: Professor Heidi Brooks of the Yale University School of Management and Jennifer Agosti, a national consultant to states, including recently California, on developing policy, practice and collaborations to address racism within state agencies. Our internal work to address issues of racial equity and justice within our department will be anchored in Cross-Cutting Theme #6: Becoming a Learning Organization. Our goal is explicit: To become an agency in which our policies and practice reflect racial and ethnic equity and justice." Page 15 of the study. Click here to keep reading.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
LEADERSHIP SIGN ON DCF READS WHITES ONLY.
Department of Children and Families
Agency Web page | Statutory Authority |Agency History |
Published histories/articles | State Library Collections |
List of Commissioners
Hospital/Treatment Centers administered by the Dept. of
Children and Families
Agency Web page :
Statutory Authority :
CGS, Chapter 319, Title 17a.
Agency History :
1969, established as Department of Children and Youth
Services, per P.A. 664. Absorbed the Commission on Youth Services, and took
jurisdiction over the formerly autonomous Long Lane School and Connecticut
School for Boys
1974, began administering social and protective services
under purchase of service agreements with the State Welfare Dept (i.e.
supervision of the State Receiving Home etc.)
1976, Jan. 1, P.A. 75-524 transferred children’s psychiatric
services from the Dept. of Mental Health to the Dept. of Children and Youth
Services.
1993, July 1, name change to Dept. of Children and Families
per P.A. 93-91.
Published Histories/Articles :
Not available
Archived Department of Children and Familes Web site, as
harvested on 2007-04-11, by the Connecticut State Library, Connecticut Digital
Archive.
Agency Documents in the State Library Collections :
Check the State Library catalog, CONSULS, under these author
headings for publications by the agency available in the State Library :
Connecticut. Dept. of Children and Youth Services.
Connecticut. Dept. of Children and Families.
Annual Reports are
located in :
Digest of Administrative Reports to the Governor [CSL Call
Number ConnDoc F40 d], and 2002-, the online version
State Archives Record Group : RG 178
List of Commissioners:
List of Commissioners:
Name
|
Years of Service
|
Wayne R. Mucci
|
1970
|
Francis H. Maloney
|
1971-1979
|
Mark J. Marcus
|
1980-1986
|
Amy B. Wheaton
|
1987-1990
|
Rose Alma Senatore
|
1991-1994
|
Linda D'Amario Rossi
|
1995-1997
|
Kristine D. Ragaglia
|
1998-2003
|
Darlene Dunbar
|
2003-2007
|
Brian Mattiello (Acting)
|
2007-June 2007
|
Susan I. Hamilton
|
June 28, 2007-2011
|
Joette Katz
|
January 2011-
|
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Friday, November 30, 2012
PARALLELS BETWEEN WAL-MART AND DCF PLANTATION WORKERS
There are oppressed workers fighting in different locations for egalitarian rights. Wal-Mart workers do not receive a decent wage nor insurance benefits. And this in spite of the fact Wal-Mart Inc. is valued at 100 billion dollars. Workers on DCF Plantation by contrast have decent pay and insurance: however, both are oppressed in different ways. Connecticut Juvenile Training School Youth Services Officers (which is a low level position) are abused by a predominately white hierarchy.Therefore, abuse in two places by people in power over their employees.
================================================================== ================================================================== ================================================================== ===================================================================== ======================================================================
"Civil Rights Activists: Racial Profiling Law Needs Overhaul."
http://photos.newhavenregister.com/2012/03/05/photos-racial-profiling-press-conference-march-5-2012/26792/#5
===================================================================
Civil
Rights Activists: Racial Profiling Law Needs Overhaul.
Lawmakers and civil rights
groups called Monday for an overhaul of the state’s racial-profiling law,
following a Courant report showing black and Hispanic motorists pulled over by
police were far more likely to receive a ticket than white drivers stopped for
the same offense.
“This data that the
Hartford Courant revealed only verifies what we know has been going on for
quite some time,” said Imam Mohammad Ansari of the Connecticut chapter of the
NAACP. “We’ve been saying for years that this and other types of racial
profiling are still going on. This is not new.”
But the analysis of traffic stops, coupled with the Department of
Justice’s criminal investigation of alleged discrimination by some officers in
East Haven, has sparked renewed calls to strengthen the state’s law on
profiling. Speakers at a morning press conference at the Legislative Office
Building said the current law has been widely ignored and lacks the teeth to
compel police agencies to investigate and root out possible bias.
The Alvin W. Penn Racial Profiling Prohibition Act was passed in
1999 and required police agencies across the state to collect data on traffic
stops and submit the reports to the state. But only about a third regularly
submit the information, and the Courant’s analysis was the first ever to
compare how whites, blacks and Hispanics fared after police stops for specific
offenses.
“This important bill that was passed is not being enforced,
nobody’s paying any attention to it, and a lot of people are being harmed,”
said state Sen. Edwin Gomes, D-Bridgeport, who holds the seat once held by
Alvin Penn.
Isaias T. Diaz, chairman of the Latino and Puerto Rican Affairs
Commission said he and others would press for legislation that would give the
Office of Policy and Management responsibility for collecting and analyzing
traffic-stop data. That task is currently the responsibility of the
African-American Affairs Commission, which has consistently reported that it
lacks the resources to complete an analysis. Diaz said legislation would also
establish an advisory committee to review compliance with the law.
State Rep. Kelvin Roldán, D-Hartford, went a step further and
said he would support legislation authorizing the appointment of a special master
to supervise departments found to be out of compliance with the law.
The Courant analyzed data on more than 100,000 traffic stops and
found that for 13 categories of offenses – from speeding to running stop signs
to having a broken tail light – Hispanic motorists stopped by police were more
likely to receive a citation than whites stopped for the same offense. Black
motorists were more likely than whites to be cited in 10 of the 13 categories.
Among motorists stopped for running a stop sign, for example, 22 percent of
white motorists received a ticket or summons, compared to 28 percent of black
drivers and 40 percent of Hispanics.
“This is not ‘disparity,’ ” said State Rep. Juan
Candelaria, D-New Haven. “This is purely discrimination.”
Several Connecticut police officials, however, have said they do
not believe officers engage in discriminatory practices and say other factors
may lead to higher ticketing rates for blacks and Hispanics. They point out
that the data collected during traffic stops identifies only the violation that
led to the stop, and say a motorist could be pulled over for a minor violation
but receive a ticket for a more serious offense, such as driving without a
license. That would skew the data if blacks and Hispanics on average are more
likely to be in violation of those more-serious offenses. Others say black and
Hispanic drivers may on average have worse driving histories, which could
affect whether an officer issues a ticket.
Some speakers said the data may under-report the racial and ethnic
disparity in traffic stops. Adam Osmond of Farmington said both he and his wife
have been ticketed by
local police and identified as white, even though they are both dark-skinned
blacks.
“I don’t think anybody in this room could confuse me being white,”
Osmond said. “In my opinion, this was done in order to lower the percentage of
black people [counted as having been ticketed] and increase the percentage of
white people.”
Even before the Courant’s Feb. 26 report, lawmakers were pressing
for legislation that would shift responsibility for analyzing the traffic stop
data from the African-American Affairs Commission to OPM. A similar proposal
failed to come up for a vote last year, but activists Monday said the issue’s
higher profile gives them confidence that lawmakers would approve that change,
and would be open to a broader overhaul of the law as well.
“I’m not just upset about the fact that we have racial profiling
going on, I’m upset about the fact that we’re here this year after attempting
to do a fix to this bill last year,” said state Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield,
D-New Haven, chair of the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus. “There
is no one in this building who has any legitimate reason why they would vote
against or work against a bill to fix the bill that passed in 1999.”
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