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:

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-

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.


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"Civil Rights Activists: Racial Profiling Law Needs Overhaul."


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Civil Rights Activists: Racial Profiling Law Needs Overhaul.
by MATTHEW KAUFFMAN on MARCH 5, 2012 · 1 COMMENT
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.”

http://courantblogs.com/investigative-reporting/civil-rights-activists-racial-profiling-law-needs-overhaul/
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