B-5. 'Treatment'

13,000 Abuse Claims in Juvie Centers - Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers in Top 25 Censored Stories for 2009 - Holbrook Mohr, Associated Press, March 2, 2008 - Student Researcher: Sarah Maddox - Faculty Evaluator: Barbara Bloom, PhD

In states across the country, child advocates have harshly condemned the conditions under which young offenders are housed - conditions that involve sexual abuse, physical abuse, and even death. 
[Several cases described, among which:]
... severe overcrowding, with teenagers sleeping floors; nonexistent educational opportunity; nonexistent mental healthcare or rehabilitative programs; isolation for over twenty-three hours a day for months straight; use of excessive force, including beatings and pepper sprayings; and inappropriate administration of medications.

... telling how her son was forced to perform oral sex by female prison staff, sodomized by an older inmate in an incident arranged by a guard and suffered a broken jaw and concussions in physical attacks.
Galloway's story is about her son Joseph, now 19, who has been in the system for more than four years. He had been raped by a friend's older brother when he was eight, but his parents did not learn of the attack until he was 15, after he had started touching his siblings inappropriately, and they called for help. "I reported this to the authorities thinking that they were going to get us some help," Galloway told [...].
But this story, and that of others, is not a story of helping someone ...

Revealed: brutal guide to punishing jailed youths - Mark Townsend; The Observer & The Guardian, UK, Sunday 18 July 2010

Shocking details of techniques used to inflict pain deliberately on children in privately run jails have been revealed for the first time in a government document obtained by the Observer. 
"The manual is deeply disturbing and stands as state authorisation of institutionalised child abuse."

School of Shock - Jennifer Gonnerman, MotherJones, August 20 , 2007

Eight states are sending autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to a facility that punishes them with painful electric shocks. How many times do you have to zap a child before it's torture?

Juvenile sex offenders marked for life - Records of childhood transgressions, never sealed, limit options for adults - Claudia Rowe, Seattle P-I, June 22, 2008 

"A common misperception is that they're like adults," said Dan Knoepfler, president of the Washington Association for Treatment of Sexual Abusers. "But they're not. We're mainly talking about geeky, nerdy, socially immature kids. And so many of the factors that contribute to risk -- like where they live or how their families work -- are out of their control."

In decades past, Knoepfler said, few believed that youths committing inappropriate sex acts -- whether awkward adolescents or predatory criminals -- needed treatment. "But my sense is that now we've oversold the case," he said.

Part of juvenile system quashed - Judge: Classification of sex offenders unfair - Deborah Yetter, courier-journal.com, September 6, 2007

A Franklin Circuit judge has struck down Kentucky's system for classifying and housing juveniles who commit sex offenses, finding it deprives the youths of proper treatment. 
In a ruling issued yesterday, Judge Phillip Shepherd found the state Juvenile Justice Department has exceeded its authority in creating a system where youths who commit even minor offenses are required to undergo long-term treatment at residential centers. 

Shepherd found juvenile justice officials have begun classifying youths who commit even minor sex offenses, such as fondling, as "juvenile sex offenders," a category under law generally reserved for older children who commit serious offenses such as rape or sodomy. 
That classification allows the department to send the youths to a secure facility where they are required to enter sex offender treatment programs for up to three years.

UD study says state wastes millions of dollars on treating low-risk juvenile sex offenders - Newarkpostonline.com, June 25, 2010

An examination of Delaware's approach to juvenile sex offenders finds the need for reform. Research released today shows the system costs taxpayers millions each year, treating many kids as high risk who simply do not fall into that category, while distracting the state from the truly risky offenders.

Juvenile Treatment and Recidivism - Peter Christian & Brian Maass, web-article, May 9, 2010 - Statistics about juvenile sex offender treatment

It is widely accepted by experts in the field that juvenile sex offenders are more likely, and open, to rehabilitation than adult sex offenders.

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