Having problems with message search?
From: reg
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 11:38 PM
A handful of leafleters spent Mother's Day outside the Santa Clara
County, California Juvenile Hall, encouraging visiting parents to
step forward with stories of child abuse committed by the counselors.
The hall is already in the cross hairs of a federal investigation
which is probing allegations of physical abuse. In the fliers
distributed to visitors Sunday, Norman Towson, whose son is inside,
and about five other volunteers, asked parents to provide ``the names
of the abused juveniles, the crimes committed, who committed these
crimes, the dates of the abuses and the story behind what happened.''
The information, he said, would be passed on to investigators. ``I
want to get my son out of here and help as many people as I can to
get their kids out of this place,'' Towson said. Towson and his
sister, Treasa, also out leafleting Sunday, say they are considering
teaming with other families to sue the hall. They also claim the
probation department closed the hall to visitors the last two
weekends to keep organizers from contacting other families and not
because of safety concerns over on-going construction, as they say
they were told.
Unfortunately, there is nothing unusual about the mistreatment of
kids who find themselves in lock up:
· The Santa Clara County juvenile hall uses restraint holds on
fighting and flailing youths that institutions around the country
have abandoned out of concern they can injure children. News report
last month uncovered allegations that more than two dozen boys had
been hurt by staff at the hall in the last nine years, often during
restraint attempts. The injuries included 11 broken arms.
· A recent civil claim against North Carolina by three Swannanoa
(juvenile facility) students was filed after a staff member allegedly
sexually abused them. In separate action, the prisoner-rights group
NC Prisoner Legal Services is investigating the Buncombe County
training school to determine if other students have been mistreated.
The nonprofit organization is considering expanding its investigation
statewide and may file its own lawsuit to force improvements. A
woodshop teacher at Stonewall Jackson (North Carolina) was charged
with sexually abusing four students in 2000. And, that same year,
eight staff members at C.A. Dillon were accused of personal
misconduct for their treatment of six students. "Juvenile facilities
and detention centers all over the country are a problem," said Lynn
Grindall of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center, a seven-state
resource group that includes North Carolina. "It's the mentality that
these kids are throwaways."
· A Reno lawyer has petitioned for a grand jury investigation into
Wittenberg Hall there, claiming negligence because a 15-year-old boy
was sexually assaulted at the juvenile detention facility in
February. Carter R. King, who filed the petition Thursday with the
victim and his parents, said similar incidents have happened at
Wittenberg in the past 10 years. "I've heard other lawyers say their
clients were abused there," King said. "I've heard all sorts of
nightmare stories of things that have happened to their clients…."He
(his client) deserved to spend the night in Wittenberg Hall, but he
didn't deserve to get sexually assaulted while he was in there," King
said. "His punishment didn't include being raped."
· Teens are sent to religious reform schools (where they have even
fewer rights then those in juvenile detention facilities) in Missouri
from all over the nation by the hundreds, but no one knows exactly
how many and few know or care how they are treated. The teens are
plunged into a regimen of Bible discipline - where some say they are
beaten daily for misbehavior, where several schools ban them from
dialing a phone, and where workers screen all outgoing mail. Missouri
does not require faith-based child residential facilities to get a
state license. So unless officials are investigating a report of
child abuse, state authorities cannot inspect the reform schools,
monitor their quality or know how many they enroll or where they are.
An unlicensed program in Missouri is not required to register with
the state or even present proof that it is a faith-based institution
that should be exempt from regulation. "Even knowing where these
homes are would be a start," said Carmen Schulze of the Missouri
Coalition of Children's Agencies. "But I can't even get a list." Some
former students of one school tell of severe corporal punishment,
including so-called "board parties," where they said several students
received as many as 50 swats.
· In Texas, the Parker County Residential Treatment Center, a
privately run institution for foster children with severe emotional
problems, had amassed a long list of violations by the time the state
forced its closing late last year. Investigators determined that
teenage residents at the center were beaten, choked, improperly
restrained and deprived of food. The place often was found to be
filthy and in dangerous disrepair. In 1999 – one example among
dozens –licensing inspectors said residents were not given sufficient
food, and that children were being subjected to "cruel, harsh,
unusual or unnecessary punishment." Those findings did nothing to
stop the placement of children there. In June 2001, an agency
investigator wrote of one teenage resident, "Kimberly was observed to
have bruises all over her body and there is concern about the
appropriateness of the restraints." Two months later, the director
of the agency's Child Protective Services signed a $1.4 million
contract with the center for the placement of more foster children.
At other centers in Texas, teens have died after improper restraints.
Sources: Dallas Morning News, Reno Gazette Journal, Mercury News,
Asheville Citizen-Times, St. Louis Post Dispatch
Offline 
Send Email