Convicted Teenage Girls Isolated From Adults

Re “Girls Convicted as Adults Serve Time in Solitary,” Jan. 3: I am a 17-year-old girl, and as I read this story about Noemi I couldn’t help but be shocked at the thought that the jail system doesn’t know the difference between an adult and a teenager. I don’t try to justify Noemi’s actions; however, I agree with Javier Stauring, director of the juvenile detention ministry of the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, when he says, “It’s a dungeon.”

Isolation, as I have heard, is only given to those people who have committed extremely serious crimes or who get out of hand while in prison. The fact that she is being isolated in the adult level simply proves the jail system’s failure to think in terms of the future. One day Noemi will leave the prison and come out to the world--to us--with all the things that she learned while imprisoned. Either she was truly “disciplined” and will behave appropriately or she will put into practice all the knowledge she gained from her sentence.

Azucena Favela

Cudahy