Link – History shows abuse of children in custody will remain an ‘inherent risk’ – report

If you spend any time at all thinking about children and the criminal justice system, this is not a huge surprise.

“A new report on the history of safeguarding children detained for criminal offences in the UK has concluded that it is impossible to remove the potential for abuse in secure institutions, and that the use of custody for children should only be a “last resort.””

There is no greater power imbalance than that between a prison guard and prisoner, especially for children in custody. (Also true for adults in custody, by the way)

That is by design. That is part of being in prison. I don’t think we can really have prisons and not have that sort of power dynamic. But, we can do a much better job of monitoring, and weeding out abusive behavior, if we really care about people in prison, instead of allowing a culture to exist where it’s no big deal to abuse fellow human beings just because they have been found guilty of a crime. They are in prison, that is the punishment, not being further beaten and raped.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-10-history-abuse-children-custody-inherent.html