DAILY TRIFECTA: If Children Are The Future, We Are Abusing The Future
Systemic cruelty
TITLE: ‘Taxpayer-funded child abuse’: What a congressional investigation found happens at youth treatment centers in Utah and across the country
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2024/06/13/taxpayer-funded-child-abuse-what/
EXCERPT: Large health care companies running residential treatment programs throughout the country have emphasized making money over the well-being of the children in their care — resulting in young people experiencing “routine harm” like sexual abuse, unnecessary seclusion and chemical restraints, according to a new congressional investigation.
The corporations who were the focus of the investigation largely make that money from federal dollars — mostly in Medicaid and child welfare funding — that are spent sending kids to programs far away from their homes, said Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, said during a Wednesday committee hearing. But at these programs, Wyden said, “abuse and neglect is the norm.”
“They’re set up to let this happen,” Wyden said. “The system is failing — except [for] the providers running these treatment facilities, who have figured out exactly how to turn a profit off taxpayer-funded child abuse.”
The Senate finance committee studied youth residential treatment programs for two years prior to releasing Wednesday’s sweeping report, which focused on abuse allegations at four of the country’s major operators of youth residential treatment centers: Universal Health Services, Acadia Healthcare, Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health and Vivant Behavioral Healthcare
These companies mostly operate outside of Utah, but Universal Health Services runs two facilities here — Provo Canyon School and Copper Hills Youth Center.
Allegations of abuse and mistreatment at both facilities were documented in the committee’s 130-page report.
At Provo Canyon School, investigators cited state records which showed that a teacher hit a student in the head at the Springville campus. And in another instance, a staffer “pulled a student’s hair for leverage in a restraint.” The committee report also cited reporting from The Salt Lake Tribune, which detailed how a 14-year-old Oregon girl had been chemically injected with sedatives 17 times over a roughly three-month period — a number so alarming that child welfare officials from Oregon flew in to investigate. Another child told federal investigators that she was also frequently chemically sedated, which she described as “a liquid that makes someone fall asleep and calms you down.”
Investigators noted that Utah regulators looked into Copper Hills Youth Center in 2022 after a staffer put a child into a chokehold. There were other instances, according to the report, where Copper Hills staff appeared to escalate a situation that ended in physical violence.
The committee report also highlighted a Tribune investigation from 2020 which showed how larger facilities — including those owned by UHS — tend to have more out-of-state contracts for Medicaid or child welfare funding, and often have more reports of sexual abuse and violence than Utah’s average treatment center.
“American tax dollars are funding the kind of abuse our investigators found,” Wyden said Wednesday. “In some cases, these facilities receive over $1,200 per day, per child, from the Medicaid program. The experiences and trauma these kids are left with reads like something from a horror novel.”
TITLE: Abused by the badge: Hundreds of police have sexually abused kids. How do they avoid prison time
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2024/police-officers-child-sexual-abuse-in-america/
EXCERPTS: A Washington Post investigation has found that over the past two decades, hundreds of law enforcement officers in the United States have sexually abused children while officials at every level of the criminal justice system have failed to protect kids, punish abusers and prevent additional crimes.
Police and sheriff’s departments have enabled predators by botching background checks, ignoring red flags and mishandling investigations. Accused cops have used their knowledge of the legal system to stall cases, get charges lowered or evade convictions. Prosecutors have given generous plea deals to officers who admitted to raping and groping minors. Judges have allowed many convicted officers to avoid prison time.
All the while, children in every state and the District of Columbia have continued to be targeted, groomed and violated by officers sworn to keep them safe.
The Post identified at least 1,800 state and local law enforcement officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022.
Reporters spent more than a year unearthing thousands of court filings, police records and other documents to understand who these officers are, how they gain access to children and what is — and isn’t — being done to stop them.
The Post also conducted an exclusive analysis of the nation’s most comprehensive database of police arrests.
This database, managed by Bowling Green State University, tracks news reports of arrests of law enforcement. Of the hundreds of thousands of sworn officers in the United States, only a small fraction are ever charged with crimes. And not all arrests are reported in the news media. But from 2005 through 2022, Bowling Green identified about 17,700 state and local officers who were charged with crimes, including physical assault, drunken driving and drug offenses.
The Post found that 1 in 10 of those officers were charged with a crime involving child sexual abuse.
This type of police misconduct has gone largely unrecognized by the public and unaddressed within the criminal justice system. When pressed by The Post, some police officials, prosecutors and judges admitted that they could have done more to hold officers accountable in the cases they handled. But nationwide, there has been little reckoning over child abusers within the ranks of law enforcement.
TITLE: More child abuse victims can sue after Louisiana Supreme Court reversal
https://lailluminator.com/2024/06/13/more-child-abuse-victims-can-sue-over-old-allegations-after-louisiana-supreme-court-reversal/
EXCERPT: Adults abused as children decades ago will be able to sue over the mistreatment under a Louisiana Supreme Court ruling released Wednesday.
Justices overturned their decision from March that declared a “lookback window” for lawsuits over older child abuse allegations unconstitutional. Now such cases can move forward.
The new ruling likely creates greater liability for the Catholic Church and other organizations accused of systemic child exploitation over decades. It could also affect individual schools, summer camps and other institutions that tolerated misconduct toward minors.
“I am thankful that the Court saw the error in its original opinion and was willing to reconsider this matter and find the Lookback Window to be constitutional,” Frank Lamothe, a New Orleans attorney who represents child abuse survivors in lawsuits against the Catholic Church, said in a written statement. “This is a victory for the survivors of child sex abuse.”
The court’s change of heart is also a political victory for Attorney General Liz Murrill, who put the justices under public pressure to reconsider the initial ruling. In April, she asked for a rehearing on the issue.
“These child victims of sexual abuse deserve their day in court,” Murrill said in a written statement Wednesday after the new ruling. “It’s very rare for the Supreme Court to grant rehearing and reverse itself. I’m grateful to the Court for giving such careful attention to an issue that is so deeply troubling and personal for so many victims of abuse.”
A case brought against the Catholic Diocese of Lafayette led to the justices’ ruling. A group of plaintiffs sued over alleged abuse at the hands of a priest in the 1970s. The diocese maintained the accusations were too old to be pursued.
The Legislature voted in 2021 to let adult survivors of child abuse file claims for damages for three years — from June 14, 2021 to June 14, 2024 — if the deadline to do so had previously expired.
This was expected to allow people abused prior to the early 1990s, but who had never come forward with a legal challenge, to do so.
The Lafayette diocese pushed back on the law, saying legislators never intended to allow old allegations dating back to the 1970s to be examined. They also argued allowing older accusations to come forward would be a violation of due process, because witnesses and documents related to abuse claims might longer be available.
The Legislature disagreed. It unanimously passed a clarifying law in 2022, stating its intent to allow for civil lawsuits over decades-old abuse. Earlier this year, lawmakers also unanimously approved a resolution, sent to each Supreme Court justice, restating their desire to see older abuse allegations be brought forward in court.
In the ruling released Wednesday, justices writing for the majority acknowledged as much.
“[T]he conclusion is unassailable: the legislature intended retroactive application of the law,” Chief Justice John Weimer said in his opinion.