WUNRN
USA - NATIONAL JUVENILE PROSTITUTION
STUDY
JUVENILE PROSTITUTION AS CHILD
MALTREATMENT
Direct Link to Full 20-Page Report:
_________________________________________________________________
May 12, 2010 | Christina
Jewett
Nearly one-third of
the juvenile prostitutes picked up by police are treated as offenders rather
than victims, a nationwide study of teen prostitution found.
Flickr
by Juan M Casillas
Police in
The study’s
authors estimate that there are between 1,300 and 1,600 juvenile
prostitutes in the
The report did not
examine how
But the advocacy
group Children of the Night also reports that
Among the findings:
·
Ninety percent of juvenile prostitutes are
female and 60 percent have a history of running away. Nearly 60 percent are
white and 53 percent live in cities.
·
Juvenile prostitutes find 86 percent of
clients on the street, 17 percent through an escort service and 14 percent on
the Internet.
·
Police say 30 percent of the juvenile
prostitutes they encounter are aggressive or disrespectful and 45 percent are
fearful.
·
Police are far more likely to regard a teen
prostitute whose activity is reported to them as a victim compared to a teen
they encounter on the beat. They are also more likely to treat fearful teens as
victims.
The authors conclude
that police are generally doing little about the problem, as more than half of
the police agencies they contacted provided no information about arrests. They
suggest better reporting of cases, possibly with mandatory reporting to the
FBI.
Social supports to
youths rescued from prostitution also seem to be lacking, based on one news
report about a large juvenile prostitution bust. After an FBI investigation
found 52 juveniles engaged in “sexual slavery,” experts told the Los
Angeles Times that none of the youths were getting the type of help
they needed.
At least one, a 15-year-old Sacramento girl held on an
unrelated charge, remains in a juvenile detention center, according to a Los
Angeles Times check of the children's situations. Others have been sent home or
into foster care.
The victims need intensive residential treatment, experts
say, and only three such programs exist in the country.
Richard Estes, a social policy professor at the
University of Pennsylvania and an expert on child sexual exploitation, said the
"best fighting chance" for victims is "24/7 residential care for
a long period of time."
"This is not a quick-fix situation," he said.
"It really is a rebuilding and remolding of personality and
character."
Typically, such
teens are “dumped back in the dysfunctional home, ill-equipped group home or
foster care, and [often] disappear back into the underground of prostitution
with no voice," Lois Lee, founder of a 24-bed Los Angeles shelter called
Children of the Night told the Times.
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to: wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com.
Thank you.