Incorrigibles

12/13/2025

Thank you, Joelle Casteix, for all your work on behalf of survivors and for sharing the words you never said to yourself... until now.

After two decades helping survivors tell their stories, I finally recognized the part of my story I had spent years minimizing. While rebuilding the NCSESAME website, I read survivor accounts that mirrored my own experience in ways I had never allowed myself to see.

This piece is about that moment. Not the trauma — but the silence it created.

It took a long time for that silence to crack.

https://theworthyadversary.com/5596-educator-grooming-survivor-story

12/09/2025

Stories from the New York State Training School for Girls

Ona Gritz shares the story of her older sister, Andra, who was sent to the New York State Training School (1904–1975) when she was about twelve years old in the 1970s. As a child, Andra often ran away from home, starting at age 12…“They said she was wild.”

🎧 Continue to listen: Ona and Andra’s Story

https://stories.incorrigibles.org/testimonies.html

💬 Stories like these matter. If you, or a family member, were at the NYS Training School—or another institution for youth “rehabilitation”—and have a story to share, we’d be grateful to hear it. Call (478) 227-8649 and leave a message, or feel free to DM us.

12/04/2025

Shawnda Chapman—who has served as Director of the Girls Fund Initiative at the Ms. Foundation and is a longtime advocate for racial and gender justice—has dedicated her life to fighting for girls who are too often overlooked and over-policed.

Drawing from her own experiences, she’s become a national leader in the movement to end girls’ incarceration, with previous roles at the Vera Institute of Justice and Columbia University’s Center for Justice.

In this video, Shawnda shares what drives her advocacy, her journey through the system, and her vision for a world where every girl is free.

Link to watch the full interview: https://stories.incorrigibles.org/expertvoices.html #/?playlistId=0&videoId=0

Part of our Expert Voices video series. 🎦🔗

—part

12/02/2025

This Giving Tuesday, we’re asking you to stand with us in uplifting stories that have too often gone unheard.

✨ Support the impact campaign for HILDA O. VS. THE STATE OF NEW YORK — a film honoring resilience, memory, and the fight for justice.
✨ Donate to The Incorrigibles Project — preserving the histories of girls labeled “incorrigible” and building space for healing and advocacy.

Donate to Incorrigibles: https://www.nyfa.org/projects/project-info/?id=AC1452 =30094

Donate to Hild O. impact campaign: https://www.nyfa.org/projects/project-info/?id=AC1881
🧡

11/25/2025

Stories from the New York State Training School for Girls

Sharon Anderson shares how she grew up in a loving home but was rebellious as a child. In the early 1970s, after she shoplifted a suede coat on a cold winter day, her mother had her sent to the New York State Training School for Girls.

🎧 Continue to listen: Sharon Anderson’s Story. Link in bio.

💬 Stories like these matter. If you—or a family member—were at the NYS Training School or another institution for youth “rehabilitation” and have a story to share, we’d be grateful to hear it. Call (478) 227-8649 and leave a message, or feel free to DM us.

11/13/2025

Incorrigible: in·cor·ri·gi·ble /ˌinˈkôrəjəb(ə)l/ unable to be reformed or corrected.

A term once used to label youth, especially girls, as delinquent.
In New York State, the word remained in official use until 2021, when it was finally removed from the books.

Historically, labels like this justified the institutionalization of girls who didn’t conform to expectations of morality or obedience.

Today, those same biases persist in new forms — in the adultification of Black girls, in school policing, and in systems that still find ways to criminalize youth rather than support them.

Although progress has been made, there is much more to be reformed. To start we need to ask ‘Why?’ When a youth runs away from home, misses school, or ‘acts out’. Rather than punishing the behavior let’s understand and address the problem.

11/10/2025

Stories from the New York State Training School for Girls
 
Marie shares how her mother, Cecil, was sent to the New York State Training School (1904-1975) in the 1920s after being abandoned at just five years old. Through Marie’s words, we hear about Cecil’s experiences, the challenges she endured, and the resilience that carried through generations. Neglect and abandonment affected Marie’s family across three generations, but she has broken the cycle.
 
🎧 Listen to the full clip: Marie and Cecil’s Story. Link in bio.

💬 Stories like these matter. If you, or a family member, were at the NYS Training School—or another institution for youth “rehabilitation”—and have a story to share we’d be grateful to hear it. Send us a message or call us at: (478) 227-8649

10/03/2025

10/01/2025

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/women/2025.html

Women's incarceration in every region of the United States is out of step with the rest of the world.

09/30/2025

We’re excited to announce the U.S. premiere of Hilda O. vs. The State of New York at the New York State International Film Festival!

At 15, Hilda Onley was incarcerated at the New York State Training School for Girls, where she endured sexual abuse. For more than six decades, she lived with the trauma, barred from seeking justice by the statute of limitations. That changed in 2019, when New York’s Child Victims Act finally gave her the chance to hold the state accountable.

Filmed in Albany—the backdrop of her historic case—this documentary follows Hilda, now 82, as she courageously fights for justice. We’d love for you to join us at the premiere and be part of sharing her powerful story.

📍Location: Steamer N.10 Theatre - 500 Western Ave, Albany, NY, United States
🗓️ Date and Time: Friday, October 3rd at 7:35 PM

Tickets can be purchased at the link in bio. 🔗

09/12/2025

Closing Reception Sunday - https://mailchi.mp/45718c6d885e/exhibition-closing-reception

08/29/2025

Take a listen/read this article about the exhibition Unearthing the Light, being held at The Church Staatsburg.

https://www.wamc.org/news/2025-08-28/new-exhibit-unearthing-the-light-explores-themes-of-loss-and-remembrance-around-the-new-york-training-school-for-girls

More info: www.thechurchstaatsburg.org

Before it became a prison for men, Hudson Correctional Facility spent decades as the Women’s House of Refuge and the reformatory New York Training School for Girls. From 1904 to 1975, the training school detained juvenile delinquents, runaways, and girls who were simply deemed “incorrigible” o...