And here we go, this should tell you all you need to know:
Girls as young as 13 say they were shackled for weeks at a time
WTF?
After the flip more from CNN. And you won't like it
Oh and this wasn't about Iraq, this is the full quote:
Girls as young as 13 say they were shackled for weeks at a time in Mississippi.
The story is a sad one, sexual abuse and beatings.
"It's a nationwide crisis that has been going on for years, one the public has never been told the extent of," said psychiatric social worker Jerome Miller, the co-founder of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, who has evaluated and helped reform juvenile jails for more than three decades.
This includes sex with guards, sex with other inmates and of course beatings, being hogtied and forced to eat vomit.
Represented by attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Erica and nine other girls housed at Columbia are suing the state, claiming they endured a range of sexual and physical abuse, including shackling. Don Desper, a licensed therapist and former employee at Columbia who opposed the practice, told CNN it was used to prevent the teens from escaping.
The federal authorities have now sued these eleven states(9+2 territories):
Of course these places can be shut down, they did shut down one place in Mississippi:
Another facility under Justice scrutiny is Oakley Training School near Jackson, Mississippi, which was sued by the department at the same time as Columbia. Gov. Haley Barbour recently announced Columbia's inmates would be transferred this summer to Oakley when Columbia is closed.
But the Justice Department said Oakley has satisfied barely a fraction of requirements the department set for it years ago. According to a March 2008 Justice report, there is an "enormous amount of work" needed to make Oakley a safe and productive place to rehabilitate troubled teens.
Fail.
Here is the CNN video (a flash video at Rawstory).
At (about) 1:30 there is something that can be bit shocking, so be careful.
In Texas they have this:
Texas granted early release in February to a 16-year-old girl who attempted suicide after she was allegedly molested repeatedly by a male guard. The guard was indicted in December on four counts of molesting the girl. He was previously charged with raping four other female inmates, but those charges were dropped, said Hurley, after witnesses retracted their accounts.
another WTF moment for me. You can find more from the CNN story.
There is a bright sode to this(sort of)
She tries not to think about Columbia, but smiles when she talks about the facility closing.
"I'm happy, real happy," said Erica. "That means nobody is going to get hurt there again."
So, abuse in detention centers is no longer for adults. Just horrible.
Source for the quotes: CNN