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Maltreatment in Juvenile Corrections Facilities: An Update

"This report, released as a follow-up to No Place For Kids, introduces new evidence on the widespread maltreatment of youth in state-funded juvenile corrections facilities. It tells of high rates of sexual victimization, the heavy-handed use of disciplinary isolation and a growing roster of states where confined youth have been subject to widespread abuse. The four-year update is in - and the news is not good." Two sections follow and introduction and summary: findings from No Place for Kids on the nature, breadth, and extent of maltreatment and abuse in juvenile corrections facilities; and new information about maltreatment in state-funded juvenile correctional facilities.

Appendixes cover: additional states with proven maltreatment; recidivist states; and new evidence of and attention to maltreatment. This website provides access to the State-by-State Summary of Systematic or Recurring Maltreatment in Justice Correctional Facilities. You can also find information specific to your state. "The troubling evidence presented in this report should remove any remaining doubt that large conventional juvenile corrections facilities - or plainly stated, youth prisons - are inherently prone to abuse. Given public officials’ inability to prevent maltreatment, or even to clean up youth prisons where inhumane conditions are revealed, it seems difficult to argue that confinement in these institutions offers a safe approach for rehabilitating delinquent youth" (p. 29).