Abusing Our Juvenile Offenders

According to a recent study conducted by the Associated Press, reports of youngsters being abused and mistreated in juvenile detention facilities has reached epidemic levels in the United States. The Associated Press found that over 13,000 claims of abuse were filed between 2004 and 2007, a time period when approximately 46,000 youngsters were detained in the juvenile justice system. The AP study opined that the number of abuse claims filed is actually much higher than they reported because the study was not able to include private contractor facilities, who universally refuse to divulge the kind of abuse-related information the Associated Press was seeking. Sadly, the findings of the report seem to suggest that 1 in 4 juvenile detainees in the U.S. are abused in some form while detained.

In many instances, the juvenile justice system marks the final opportunity society has to readjust childhood behavior and set a youngster on the proper course of law-abiding citizenship. Unfortunately, that opportunity is far too often lost or seriously undermined when the last thing a juvenile experiences before adulthood is physical and emotional cruelty and sexual abuse.

The numbers reported by the Associated Press are alarming in and of themselves, but they mask an even deeper problem - the cavalier attitude many in this country possess when it comes to treatment of juvenile offenders. It’s not uncommon to hear somebody express the sentiment that a kid must have done something awfully bad to land in juvenile hall, and if they’re that bad, they ought to get a taste of what real prison life can be like – as if a youngster actually deserves the kind of abusive treatment they receive. Said attitude reflects a sense of ‘frontier justice’ still popular in this country, but it does not serve this Nation well when it comes to providing unruly juveniles with a healthy blueprint for leading a productive life. In fact, just the opposite is true.

When that taste of prison life includes cruelty and sexual abuse, juveniles overwhelmingly conclude that said behavior is not only acceptable, but it is necessary to achieve a sense of control over their lives. Hence, they leave the juvenile system not seeking to adjust their anti-social behavior, but rather seeking out situations where they can inflict cruelty and abuse on others or continue to experience said ill treatment from people more powerful than them. In both instances, the lives of those juveniles are markedly scarred, and many end up right back in criminal institutions – the very result juvenile facilities were created to avoid.

If Americans are sincere about the desire to reform wayward youth, its high time we demand said youth be treated with dignity and respect. If we do not take this one last opportunity to provide an example of how proper citizens should behave, our wayward youth will never get the message!