Tag Archives: juvenile justice system

February 11, 2024 · 1:00 am

Vulnerable

Backbone Mountain Youth Center

Backbone Mountain Youth Center, Garrett County, MD, Source https://djs.maryland.gov/Pages/facilities/Backbone-Mountain-Youth-Center.aspx

According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly 2000 children and teens are arrested everyday in the United States.  In 2018 alone, there were over 700,000 minors under the age of 18 arrested [1].

Tragically, young people are extremely vulnerable to mental, physical, and sexual abuse and neglect during incarceration [2][3][4].  The Dept. of Justice indicates over 36% of the youth in custody at one Maryland juvenile detention center (Backbone Mountain Youth Center) reported having been sexually abused there — fully three times the national average [5].

A total of two hundred victims of physical and sexual abuse have now sued Maryland’s Dept. of Juvenile Services [6A][7A].  Allegations are that abuse was systemic between 1969 and 2017 [8].  Fifteen facilities (three of which have since been closed) are involved in these suits. Continue reading →

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Filed under Abuse of Power, Child Abuse, Child Molestation, Emotional Abuse, Justice, Law, Neglect, Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse

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June 1, 2014 · 1:00 am

Juvenile Justice

According to Mark Twain, “There are three kinds of lies:  lies, damned lies, and statistics.” To most of us, statistics are drier than dust. But numbers can be revealing.

• Earlier this year, the Coalition for the Homeless reported a record-high number of 53,000 homeless regularly spending the night in New York City shelters [1]. Nearly half are children. In March, conditions at two city shelters were found to be so horrific that 400 of these homeless children had to be removed for health and safety reasons.

• Using the “zero tolerance” policy toward school violence as a basis, then popular Pennsylvania judge, Mark Ciavarella, sentenced over 2000 high school students – some without benefit of counsel – to incarceration for offenses as insignificant as swearing at another student’s mother, and creating a false MySpace page. Once in the criminal system, some remained imprisoned for years. At least one committed suicide [2] [2A]. Continue reading →

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Filed under Abuse of Power, Justice, Law, Politics, Poverty

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