Mothers of kids abused in prison recall their pain

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share via Email
• Copy Link

  Link Copied

Attempts at Reform

The testimony by Hulin’s mother helped to fuel passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in 2003.  The law requires that detention facilities be audited to ensure compliance with bans on housing and showering children with adults, but there are only 35 auditors nationwide for at least 6500 facilities according to Liz Ryan Executive Director of Campaign for Youth Justice, an advocacy group.

Every day, on average, in America’s adult prisons, 10,000 children are locked behind bars, mostly for nonviolent offenses and often before trial according the U.S. Justice Department. The Department estimates that close to 100,000 male inmates are sexually assaulted a year – and at least 21 percent of those are under the age 18 even though they are less than 1 percent of the adult prison population. The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission found that “more than any other group of incarcerated persons, youth incarcerated with adults are probably at the highest risk for sexual abuse.”

Juveniles are prime candidates for rehabilitation, most psychiatrists say, but educational and rehabilitative services, mandatory in juvenile detention, are not required in adult facility.  Children held in adult jails are 36 times more likely to commit suicide and 34 times more likely to reoffend than those in juvenile detention according to the Department of Justice and Centers for Disease Control.

Proponents of charging children as adults say prosecutors need discretion to charge juveniles as adults in heinous crimes.

“It is difficult and rare for a juvenile to be placed in an adult jail and it’s only for the most horrific crimes,” Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, told theGrio.

The DOJ’s National Institute of Corrections reports that approximately 250,000 juveniles under the age 18 are being held in the adult system nationally. That number that has remained steady even as the juvenile crime rate has fallen according to the Department of Justice. In 26 states, there is no minimum age specific to when a child can be tried as an adult. But in Kansas and Vermont, a child can be as young as 10 years old and face charges as an adult.  According to an analysis by the University of Texas, most of the crimes these children are charged with are nonviolent and minor offenses.

Young people of color and white youth commit roughly the same amount of crime but youth of color are treated much more harshly, according to a report by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. African-American youth were sentenced to adult prison nine times more than whites, the majority for nonviolent crimes.

The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), a 39-year-old statute, mandates efforts to reduce the racial disparities.  But since 2002, Congress has severely cut the budget and failed to reauthorize it.