Juvenile Justice Reform: Why It's Hard for Juveniles to Use Lawsuits to Fight Maltreatment in Prison

Anyone interested in juvenile justice reform should check out this opinion piece from The Boston Globe by David Fathi of Human Rights Watch, "An Unfair Prison Litigation System."(Link courtesy of the National Juvenile Justice Network.)
Fathi is making a larger point about the burden on all prisoners, adult and juvenile, but his sample case is focused on a juvenile:

In 2004, a teenage girl incarcerated at the Illinois Youth Center in Warrenville was sexually abused by a male employee at the facility. The abuse consisted of repeated acts of oral sex and sexual intercourse. There was no doubt that the abuse occurred, and the employee ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal sexual assault.
The girl, identified in court documents as “B,’’ eventually filed suit in federal court, seeking compensation. But in July, a federal judge in Chicago dismissed her case. Why? Because she had failed to comply with the technical requirements of a little-known federal law called the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA).
The PLRA was created in order to cut down on "nuisance" lawsuits. But no one can doubt that the result -- at least in this instance -- has been a miscarriage of justice. [Photo reproduced under CC license courtesy of ragesoss on Flickr.]