SJC Exchange Library

Originally posted by Logan Seacrest on 09/09/2024

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Hey CJ policy friends. Please check out my new piece in the Orange County Register on the slow-motion scandal unfloding in the U.S. juvenile justice system.

Excerpt: Sex-abuse scandal unfolds in U.S. juvenile detention centers

Court documents from a series of lawsuits, in California and across the country, have revealed a systemic pattern of abuse stretching back decades. This year alone, thousands of former juvenile detainees in Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Michigan, Oklahoma and California have come forward with harrowing stories of sexual assault. The U.S. Senate has even launched an inquiry. The scale is perhaps wider than any institutional scandal since the Roman Catholic Church's sex-abuse crisis. 

It is a disturbingly familiar pattern – child predators using positions of power to harm children. It is now clear that a system once intended to rehabilitate youth has become a clear and present danger to their wellbeing. While there is a legitimate public safety interest in detaining criminals – sometimes even young ones – there is also a public safety interest in preventing children from being sexually assaulted while under state supervision. A "law and order" approach to crime should include law and order inside our criminal justice institutions as well. 

Full column

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Logan Seacrest
Fellow
R Street Institute

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