Eighty percent are released before their 21st birthday, and 95 percent are released before they turn 25. Placing juveniles in adult facilities has devastating consequences not only for the youth but also for the communities from which they came. Youth held in adult prisons are the hardest hit and easiest prey for sexual abuse. On my first day, I was drugged, gang raped and turned into sexual chattel. Youth advocacy groups report that juveniles housed in adult facilities are 36 times more likely to commit suicide.Īt the time I was sent to prison, for robbing a Fotomat with a toy gun, I was still a boy - physically, cognitively, socially and emotionally - and ill equipped to respond to the sexualized coercion of older, more experienced convicts. Congressional findings in the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 posited that juveniles were five times as likely to be sexually assaulted in adult rather than in juvenile facilities - often within their first 48 hours of incarceration. What happened to Linda’s son and me was far from unpredictable. They will either be traumatized from sexual assault or hyper-violent from having learned to fend off the threat. Most juveniles who serve time are eventually released.
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May 2023
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