This is a report of a study conducted between 2003 and 2005, which focused on police brutality and misconduct against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the cities of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and San Antonio. Amnesty International contends that the USA “has a long history of both criminalizing homosexuality and failing to protect LGBT people against violence and discrimination.” This report shows that although significant progress has been made in the last three decades, serious police abuses against the LGBT community persist. Chapters include: police brutality, abuses in police detention, policing crimes in the community, profiling and selective enforcement, and training and accountability. Appendix A outlines international and domestic (including states) law and standards with respect to police conduct. Appendix B provides the surveys and interviews with law enforcement officials that were used to compile the report. This publication is available online at the Amnesty International web site.

"Given that sexual orientation and gender identity are intricately intertwined with issues of truancy, the commission of survival crimes, substance abuse, and suicide, it is not possible to treat and rehabilitate youth without providing counseling and programming that includes LGBT identities." Due to the causal nexus pointed out by this author -- LGBT youth require social services often because they are LGBT youth -- this dimension of their personhood cannot be ignored. She recommends appropriate placement options, sensitization of social workers to the underlying issues, including to the fact that they should not presume heterosexuality, and positive social outlets.

In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas [539 U.S. 558 (2003)] (holding that state laws criminalizing homosexual sodomy violated substantive due process), the Kansas Supreme Court reversed the conviction of Matthew Limon, who at the age of 18 had performed consensual oral sex on a boy three years younger. Matthew had been sentenced to 17 years in prison. Had Matthew performed the act on a 15-year-old girl, under Kansas law he would have been sentenced to only 15 months in prison. The author explains that Limon’s application of Lawrence is very narrowly construed, and does advance an equal protection claim, or heightened scrutiny. At best, the author argues, the Kansas Supreme Court has said that “a law punishing homosexuals fifteen times more harshly than heterosexuals for the same conduct is invalid.”