Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/sex-abuse/)
The girls at New Hampshire's youth detention center called their dormitory leader "Peepin' Dave" because they say he leered at them through a bathroom window. But David Ball, later promoted to chief of operations, also is accused of much worse.
Some of the worst government-sanctioned human rights abuses committed against children are happening right here in the United States. Earlier this year, a child sex crime survivor in Ohio had her life sentence commuted by Gov. Mike DeWine. At the age of 15, Alexis was sentenced to life in prison for participating in a robbery where the man who had been raping and sex trafficking her was killed.
As a result of mandatory sentencing schemes that fail to consider childhood trauma, children like Alexis receive the exact same punishment as adults without regard for their victim or child status. For those who remain puzzled about why the justice system doesn’t give these children the benefit of self-defense laws, you are not alone. Many self-defense laws don’t protect child sex crime victims who commit acts of violence against their abusers.
Sexual crimes are prevalent domestically and globally, and sex trafficking — people brokering other humans for sex — is no exception. Data suggest about 4.5 million people are currently trafficked, 945,000 of whom are children. Across the U.S., over 40% of cases investigated between 2008 and 2010 involved minors.
The problem is widespread, but research has identified several common risk factors for domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST): age, ethnicity, sexuality and housing status. These risk factors are briefly elucidated here, and guide our recommendations for future research, practice and policy. Trafficking is defined as “recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.” Further, a commercial sex act is “induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age,” so age is a critical aspect of DMST.
In fact, DMST victims are often young.
In a society where those behind bars are unqualifiedly perceived as corrupt and deserving of punishment, “I Am the Voice: Girls’ Reflections from Inside the Juvenile System” reminds us that girls are the fastest-growing segment of the juvenile justice system, largely due to the criminalization of their trauma. In order to create effective and sustainable systems reform, we must center the opinions of justice-involved girls who are the experts on their lived experiences.
As we watch the story of the sexual abuse scandals unfold at Penn State and now Syracuse, the first response for many was shock and concern for the boys who lives were so profoundly affected. In speaking with many parents, the next response was “could this happen to my kid, and would I know if it did?”
It is a mistake to assume they would tell us, if something like this happened to our kids. Most children who suffer this kind of abuse never tell their parents. If the child is very young they may stay silent simply because they just don’t understand what has happened to them. It is also common that the victim may assume that if something this awful happened to them, they somehow must have deserved it.
As we watch the story of the sexual abuse scandals unfold at Penn State and now Syracuse, the first response for many was shock and concern for the boys who lives were so profoundly affected. In speaking with many parents, the next response was “could this happen to my kid, and would I know if it did?”
It is a mistake to assume they would tell us, if something like this happened to our kids. Most children who suffer this kind of abuse never tell their parents. If the child is very young they may stay silent simply because they just don’t understand what has happened to them. It is also common that the victim may assume that if something this awful happened to them, they somehow must have deserved it.
The Justice Department is proposing new standards for preventing and detecting sexual abuse in prisons and youth detention centers. One proposal would require that medical staffers question children about abusive sexual behavior and consensual sex inside detention. Advocacy groups, including Children’s Defense Fund and Equity Project are warning that doctors and nurses should not be forced to investigate or question children about sex offenses because it could interfere with doctor-patient relationships. Youth Today reports on a letter from seven national advocacy groups to Attorney General Eric Holder.