The Abuse-to-Prison Pipeline: Creating a Trauma-Informed Juvenile Justice System

Originally submitted in 2018 as an academic paper during my undergraduate career at Tufts University.

Diagnosing the Problem

Cyntoia Brown’s childhood was riddled with instability and abuse. Her mother, Georgina, had Cyntoia as a teenager and drank alcohol consistently throughout her pregnancy, causing Cyntoia to develop fetal alcohol syndrome as a baby. After Cyntoia was born, Georgina left her with a family friend, turned to prostitution and drug use, was in and out of jail, and was largely absent from Cyntoia’s life. But Cyntoia’s life hardly improved with her adoptive family. Domestic violence plagued the family, and Cyntoia herself was likely sexually abused by her adoptive father. Although in the gifted program at her school, Cyntoia soon started acting out and was transferred to the alternative school after stealing jewelry from a friend’s mother. Cyntoia cycled through increasingly corrective alternative schools. It was at Woodland Hills Youth Development Center in Nashville, encircled by a razor wire fence, where Cyntoia, fourteen at the time, spiraled out of control. She got in countless fights, was put on psychotropic drugs for anxiety and depression, and had dismal self-esteem, according to a counselor (Hargrove).

When Cyntoia was released from Woodland Hills a year later, she only returned home for a short time before she left her Clarksville home to live in Nashville on her own. There, she started using harder drugs and became involved in a series of relationships with older men, several of whom she reported raped her. Sixteen-year-old Cyntoia ended up involved with a twenty-four year old man known as “Cut.” While parts of their relationship were consensual, Cut raped and physically and emotionally abused Cyntoia, got her high, and threatened to harm her or her family members if she left him. To pay for their housing and for drugs, Cut started pimping Cyntoia out. On the night of August 5, 2004, Cyntoia was picked up by Johnny Allen and taken back to his home, where Allen’s incessant discussion of his guns and unusual behavior unnerved Cyntoia. After she rebuffed his advances in bed, Allen rolled over. Thinking that he was reaching for a gun, Cyntoia shot Allen in the back of the head (Hargrove).

Cyntoia’s case was tried in adult criminal court, and, at the age of sixteen, she was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole once she was 69. She recently received a federal court date to overturn her life sentence, on the grounds that her sentence is inconsistent with a United States Supreme Court ruling that life sentences for juveniles are almost always cruel and unusual punishment (Wadhwani). Cyntoia’s story is a prime example of how abuse and the resulting trauma and damage can lead to harmful coping mechanisms and reactive behavior. Often, this behavior leads to a child’s involvement in the juvenile justice system, wherein they are likely to be retraumatized. This phenomenon is known as the abuse-to-prison pipeline, and it has significantly contributed to the rising number of girls in the juvenile justice system.

Although women make up a relatively small percentage of the incarcerated population in the United States, they are the fastest growing demographic represented in the incarcerated population. Between 1980 and 2014, the number of incarcerated women in both state and federal prisons and jails grew from 26,378 to 222,061 — a growth rate of seven hundred percent (Sentencing Project). This increase in the number of incarcerated women is also reflected in the juvenile justice system, as the number of girls detained through the juvenile justice system is also on the rise. Women and girls, as a subset of the broader prison population, are unique in the ways they become incarcerated and in the gender-specific challenges they face. A significant factor that has led to the increased representation of girls in the juvenile justice system is the abuse-to-prison pipeline. One of every four girls in the United States will experience sexual abuse before they turn eighteen (Saar, et.al., 4), and the trauma that results from any form of abuse, if left unaddressed, may fester into physical, mental, and behavioral problems that manifest in behavior that brings a girl under the purview of the juvenile justice system.

In fact, a history of abuse is the primary predictor for entry into the juvenile justice system (Saar, et.al., 4). This is because the offenses that result in a girl’s entry into the system, such as running away or truancy, or more significant offenses such as sex crimes, are often rooted in unaddressed trauma. When this unaddressed trauma causes entry into the juvenile justice system, girls are placed at risk for retraumatization as a result of detention within the juvenile justice system. This retraumatization compounds girls’ existing trauma, ultimately creating a cycle of trauma and imprisonment that is difficult to escape. In order to interrupt the abuse-to-prison pipeline, we must take a multi-pronged approach. First, we must address girls’ trauma as soon as it occurs in order to prevent girls from entering the juvenile justice system. Second, we must amend the juvenile justice system itself to incorporate a trauma-informed and gender-responsive approach, so girls are able to be rehabilitated instead of retraumatized. The central questions of this paper are how precisely does abuse make a girl susceptible to involvement in the juvenile justice system, how does this pipeline affect the lives of affected girls, and what solutions are available to intercept the abuse-to-prison pipeline?

Defining the Problem

To understand how abuse and related trauma increases a girl’s likelihood of entering the juvenile justice system, it is first necessary to understand the impact that trauma has on a person, and the unique impact it has on young girls specifically. Abuse and resulting trauma causes a person to become stuck in the body’s “stress response” mode, causing them to be perpetually on guard, both mentally and physically (​NRCJIW​, 1). A person who is constantly existing in this heightened state of awareness and guardedness will do whatever they can to make this feeling go away, even if this leads to destructive behavior. Further, trauma has a unique impact on children; when a person experiences trauma as a child, the trauma “disrupts a number of emotional, cognitive, and interpersonal processes that are important for adolescent development” (​NCTSN, ​7). Put simply, trauma limits a child’s ability to develop in a healthy way, and this hindered development can lead to physical, mental, and socioemotional problems. For children, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are directly correlated with an increased likelihood for decreased health, decreased school performance, and hindered emotional and regulatory functioning (​Northwestern, ​6).

The impact of abuse on a child’s mental, physical, and socioemotional health is significant. Children who have experienced abuse are prone to a slew of mental health issues: they are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and PTSD, are more likely to have poor interpersonal sensitivity and self-esteem, and are more likely to have suicidal tendencies (​Impact​, 460). In one study conducted by the Center for Disease Control found that “eighty percent of twenty-one year-olds who reported childhood abuse met the criteria for at least one psychological disorder” (​Child Help)​. Abuse also has a tangible impact on a child’s long-term physical health; according to the CDC, “individuals reporting six or more adverse childhood experiences had an average life expectancy two decades shorter than those who reported more” (​Child Help). ​Apart from the immediate physical harm abuse does to a child, individuals who are the survivors of childhood abuse are at increased risk for long-term physical health problems such as heart disease. These children are also at higher risk for socioemotional problems such as substance abuse, school failure, delinquency, and homelessness that may stem from a “lack of financial support, mental illness, or family conflict and instability,” all situations that may stem from or contribute to the presence of abuse in a child’s environment (​Impact​, 461). Abuse also damages a child’s ability to have healthy interpersonal relationships, and this ability is important for building support systems that may help children navigate their trauma.

A history of abuse also has damaging effects on a child’s ability to succeed in school, and there is a “powerful correlation between childhood trauma and...school difficulties” (​Northwestern​, 1). An abused child’s physical, mental, and socioemotional difficulties may cause atypical behavior in school. For example, a child who has been abused may have trouble focusing, trusting authority figures, or building healthy relationships with peers. Simply put, the effects of trauma on a child’s everyday life can make functioning in a typical school environment difficult, which may prompt the child to exhibit behavior that most schools will find unacceptable. These unhealthy behaviors often lead to an increased rate of punishment for these children, which results in the “isolation, detention, suspension, expulsion, or involuntary transfer to alternative schools” (​Northwestern, ​7) of the child. The punishment of children with a history of abuse not only fails to address the underlying causes of the child’s behavior, but may also compound the child’s existing trauma. When considering the effects of trauma on a child, these negative outcomes are no surprise. Trauma fixes children perpetually in the “stress response mode”, affecting both their mental, physical, and socioemotional functioning, disrupts a child’s normal development, makes children less likely to build or rely on healthy social support systems, preventing them from accessing the help and support they need to manage and address the effects of their trauma, and hinders a child’s success in school (​Impact​, 461).

While children of all genders and identities may experience trauma in their childhood, girls (and particularly girls of color) are much more likely to experience certain forms of childhood trauma. In a study of youth involved in Florida’s juvenile justice system, girls had higher rates of ACEs than boys in all ten categories of ACEs (​Northwestern,​ 9). One category of abuse where it is clear that girls are uniquely vulnerable is sexual abuse: girls are 4.4 times more likely to be sexually abused than boys are (​NOW​), and sexual abuse is the second most common type of abuse after physical abuse. Additionally, children of color are more likely to experience all kinds of trauma, including displacement, sexual abuse, poverty, witnessing violence, and racial discrimination (​YWCA​, 2). Girls of color in particular are more likely to experience child abuse than their white counterparts, yet are less likely to be treated for the resulting trauma (​Dismantling​, 15). Girls are also more likely than boys to develop mental health issues such as PTSD and depression as a result of trauma (​YWCA​, 2).

Pathways to Detention

The immense impact that abuse has on a child may cause them to exhibit a number of coping mechanisms and to become trapped in unhealthy situations that result in their involvement in the juvenile justice system. There are two factors that can lead to a girls’ entry into the juvenile justice system that are of particular relevance to the abuse-to-prison pipeline. The first factor is the arrest of girls for status offenses, or non-criminal offenses that would not be a violation if the offender were an adult. These offenses, such as running away, alcohol possession, truancy (habitual absence from school), violating curfew, or “incorrigibility” are non-violent offenses that do nothing to endanger public safety, yet these violations are often grounds for arrest and confinement in the juvenile justice system. According to a recent report from the Texas Public Policy Foundation, over ten thousand children are adjudicated and confined for status offenses per year (​Rolling Stone)​. Girls are twice as likely to be detained for status offenses, and they are punished more harshly than boys (​NCTSN)​.

The problem with detaining children for status offenses is not only that these children clearly pose no threat to public safety, but also that these offenses are often rooted in past trauma. According to the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, coping mechanisms for dealing with trauma may include running away, aggression, and truancy (​YWCA, ​1). Running away, substance abuse, and truancy are the most common offenses girls are arrested for, and they are also the most common symptoms of abuse (​Girls Story)​. In this way, a behavioral reaction to abuse and trauma is, in effect, criminalized. Girls who run away, are absent from school, or engage in substance abuse may be engaging in these behaviors as a way of coping with or escaping their trauma, but instead of addressing the underlying trauma, the criminal justice system punishes them by arresting and confining them. This creates a cycle of trauma and imprisonment. Abuse results in trauma that goes unaddressed and related mental or physical health issues, which in turn results in reactive behavior that leads to entry into the juvenile justice system. This involvement in the juvenile justice system may compound a child’s trauma either through additional abuse or conditions that exacerbate trauma from the original abuse. Once a child reenters the community with exacerbated trauma and without the tools to deal with it, the cycle repeats and deepens with each subsequent run-in with the juvenile justice system. Ultimately, this cycle highlights how the juvenile justice system punishes children for their trauma and how they have dealt with it, instead of helping these children work through and heal from their trauma, which may have prevented these children from resorting to these reactive behaviors that brought them under the purview of the juvenile justice system in the first place.

A second factor that contributes to the abuse to prison pipeline is the increased risk that girls who have experienced abuse will become victims of sex trafficking. Girls with a history of abuse, particularly sexual abuse, are more likely to be further abused and exploited by the illegal sex trade. In many states, minor children who are victims of sex trafficking are often charged with and found guilty of prostitution, despite the fact that the age of consent is often not until at least the age of sixteen, if not eighteen. If a child cannot legally consent to sexual relations, then they should not be charged with prostitution. Nevertheless, many states do arrest and charge minor children with prostitution. The treatment of minor children as consenting, willful prostitutes funnels vulnerable, abused children into the juvenile justice system rather than helping them escape their situation and have a chance at a normal childhood.

The number of girls entering the juvenile justice system is on the rise, and the detention of girls who have committed status offenses and who are victims of sex trafficking is a significant factor in this increase. The increased enforcement of offenses that are “rooted in the experience of abuse and trauma” (​Girls Story, 7)​ leads to a high proportion of justice-involved girls who have experienced abuse and trauma. Over ninety percent of girls in the juvenile justice system self-disclose some form of trauma (and this does not account for undisclosed trauma) (​YWCA, 2). ​Of those reporting abuse, thirty-one percent reported experiencing sexual abuse, thirty-nine percent reported emotional abuse, forty-one percent reported physical abuse, and eighty-four percent reported experiencing some sort of family violence (​Crittenton).

Neither state nor federal law mandates the detention of these girls; rather actors in the juvenile justice system have significant discretion in handling the girls’ cases. There are several key points of intercept at which girls encounter the juvenile justice system: arrest, initial hearing, trial, detention, and reentry. Police officers, probation officers, prosecutors, and judges all exercise significant discretion when deciding whether a girl moves through the juvenile justice system and is eventually confined or if she is diverted to a rehabilitative program of some kind, and the discretionary nature of these decisions leave the juvenile justice system subject to the biases of those who work within it.

When a police officer encounters a girl who, for example, has run away, is truant, or is engaging in “prostitution,” that officer can decide whether to make an arrest, give the girl a warning, or bring her to a diversionary program that is better equipped to deal with any issues (potentially trauma-related) that the girl may be dealing with. If a girl is arrested, the probation officer who handles her intake may choose whether or not to detain the girl, and has the power to make recommendations as to how the girl’s case should be handled, such as whether the girl should be institutionalized or not. In a recent study, probation officers were three times more likely to recommend institutionalization for girls than for boys, and particularly for girls whose offense involved sexual delinquency (​Mich iPhone 475)​. Probations officers were also more likely to recommend institutionalization for black youth, while they were more likely to recommend psychological evaluation for white youth (​Mich iPhone 475)​. The prosecutor may exercise discretion as to what, if any, charges they will pursue, in addition to whether they will do so in adult or juvenile court. When a youth appears before a judge, this judge holds the ultimate power to decide the fate of the juvenile: whether to put them on probation, refer them to a rehabilitative program or a group placement, or to institutionalize them. This judge is largely unaccountable to a higher authority; they likely are not required to publicly rationalize their decision, and if they do, the decision may be facially neutral, even if it was affected by a judge’s biases.

One major finding of a study on discretionary decision-making in the juvenile justice system found that girls are often punished more harshly than boys because gender-role stereotypes such as “boys will be boys” may cause the system to treat the same offenses differently when they are committed by girls because they are seen “as a manifestation of serious problems” or moral deficiency that need to be remedied by the system (​Mich iPhone, 478)​. Police are likelier to arrest girls than boys who commit the same offenses if they perceive these girls as behaving in traditionally masculine ways, such as with anger or aggression rather than deference (​RE Disparities, 265)​. Probation officers often characterize sexually inappropriate behavior of girls as indicating moral deficiency more so than boys who engage in the same behavior (​RE Disparities, 265)​.

The way that the juvenile justice system also explains how girls of color are more impacted by the system than white girls are. Girls of color are twenty percent more likely to be detained than white girls, and indigenous girls are fifty percent more likely to be detained than white girls (​Dismantling, ​21). Stereotypes about whiteness that regard white girls as “passive, in need of protection, nonthreatening, amenable to rehabilitation” and girls of color as “more mature, independent, aggressive, loud, pushy, rude, sexual, unfeminine, deserving of violence, and crime-prone” (​RE Disparities, 266)​ are particularly dangerous in a system that relies on discretion at an individual level. These stereotypes, along with the assumption that girls of color offend because of their moral character, while white girls offend because of their family background and environments explains why white girls are punished less severely than girls of color, even when taking into account age, past record, and seriousness of the offense (​RE Disparities, 267)​.

Overall, the argument for detaining girls for these non-violent offenses that are often rooted in unaddressed trauma is that the juvenile justice system can do the work of rehabilitating these girls. However, the current model of detention within the juvenile justice system is fundamentally incapable of accomplishing this task. We must reevaluate the way we handle girls who commit minor, non-violent offenses and employ a rehabilitative rather than punitive approach in order to help break the cycle of abuse and imprisonment.

Problems in Detention
At the core, the problem with institutionalizing girls is that detention centers are built to house criminals, not survivors of abuse; the conditions of detention centers are not built to be sensitive to the needs of those recovering from trauma. Rather than subjecting girls to conditions that may trigger or compound their trauma, the juvenile justice system should be reformed to emphasize community-based intervention and diversion to rehabilitate the girl.

Every day a girl spends in detention can re-traumatize her; there is no end to the list of conditions of detention centers that may compound a girl’s existing trauma. Strip searches, isolation, lack of privacy, shackling, insensitivity of staff, loud and unexpected noises, restricted movement, and a generally punitive, authoritarian environment all mimic the dynamics of abuse and serve only to compound abuse a girl has already experienced rather than help her work through existing trauma. A “culture of mistrust” ​(NCBI)​ in correction facilities, borne out of limited confidentiality, self-blame, and shame, may lead to underreporting of issues a girl faces while detained, including new occurrences of abuse (​NCBI)​. Detention facilities can “either... cue safety and stability at the level of the nervous system or... create more dysfunction, disengagement, and unsafe coping mechanisms” (​TIC, 9)​; the current system fosters primarily the latter environment.

Aside from the conditions that directly re-traumatize girls, the lack of proper resources to meet girls physical, mental, and social needs fails to rehabilitate girls because it prevents them from getting the care they need to address their trauma. In most detention facilities, “sick calls” are the primary form of healthcare that girls receive, rather than preventative or primary care (​ACOG)​. There are often neither physical or mental health evaluations upon intake, nor follow-ups on health issues that girls may have presented in the past. Detention centers often suffer from a dearth of workers such as psychologists, social workers, and counselors who can help address trauma: less than half of youth in the juvenile justice system are detained in facilities that provide mental health evaluations, and eighty-eight percent of these youth are detained in facilities where there is no access to a mental health professional (​Girls Story, 14).​ Further, most juvenile justice facilities are non-compliant with standards of pediatric and reproductive care for incarcerated populations as articulated by the American Organization of Obstetrics and other accrediting organizations (​Girls Story, 14​). For example, obstetricians and gynecologists or other reproductive healthcare providers are often not available to girls in juvenile justice facilities. While all girls should have access to quality reproductive health care, the high rate of past sexual abuse in juvenile justice populations makes the need for OB/GYNs ever more prescient.

Another major problem with institutionalizing girls in juvenile justice facilities as they exist at present is how they are largely ill equipped to prepare girls for successful reentry and reintegration into their communities upon release. These facilities isolate girls from their community and whatever support systems they might have, and also punish them by locking them up without also working to rehabilitate them. Education, skills training, and counseling and case management are often scarce or ineffective, which makes reentry difficult. Overall, the current structure of juvenile justice facilities fails to achieve its purported goal, and rather perpetuates the cycle of abuse and incarceration and the abuse to prison pipeline. In order to remedy these issues, we should look to the example of a few states that have taken certain measures to begin fixing the problem.

Examples of Reform: Texas, Connecticut, and Maine

Texas

The way Texas has decriminalized sex-related offenses in the juvenile justice system is an excellent example of a strategy to intercept the abuse-to-prison pipeline. Texas used to be one of the worst states for sex trafficking, until they became one of the first states to implement strict sex trafficking laws (​TX, 254)​. This strategy entailed not only decriminalizing sex-related offenses in the juvenile justice system, but also “properly classifying victims of sexual abuse as victims and not perpetrators [of a crime]” (​TX, 254)​. Texas’ strategy was multi-faceted, including legislation, a paradigm shift to treat survivors and not criminals, and implementing community-based alternatives to dealing with abused girls.

Texas’ legislative strategy began in earnest in 2003, with House Bill (HB) 2096. This bill made sex trafficking a second-degree felony that could be upgraded to a first-degree felony if it involved a child under the age of fourteen (​TX, 255)​. (It could be argued that this legislation should allow a felony to be upgraded if involving a child of any age.) In 2008, HB 1751 allocated grant money to fund programs that assist survivors of sexual abuse and crack down on sex trafficking through investigations and prosecution projects (​TX, 256)​. HB 4009, passed in 2009, created the Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force. This comprehensive program included a survivor assistance program that instated a database to help survivors locate programs, increased grants to related nonprofits, community outreach and training, and a heightened push to identify survivors and offer legal and counseling services to them. The Task Force also sought to increase awareness of the needs of survivors by mandating training for judges, prosecutors, and probation officers. Other initiatives established by the Task Force include improving data collection on sexual abuse and survivors, raising the age of minors from under seventeen to under eighteen, making traffickers criminally liable whether or not they were aware the survivor was a minor, and requiring the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission to form a committee to evaluate alternatives to the juvenile justice system for kids involved in sex trafficking. In 2011, Senate Bill (SB) 24 closed loopholes for traffickers and extending the statute of limitations for personal injury from two to five years (​TX, ​256).

A number of legislative actions reframed victims of sex trafficking as survivors rather than criminals. SB 92 gave juvenile probation departments the power to create diversion programs to provide treatment to survivors rather than sending them through the juvenile justice systems, and HB 2725 protected survivors by exempting agencies and shelters from having to provide the contact information, and also required the development of standardized curriculum to “help educators, health professionals, and Department of Family Protective Services personnel on how to identify a victim of human trafficking” (​TX, 258). ​The Texas Supreme Court decided in the case ​in re B.W.​ that it is necessary to distinguish “between...the criminal act of prostitution and the minor’s lack of mental capacity to commit the act” (​TX​, 260), holding that if a child cannot legally consent to sex, she cannot be criminally charged or prosecuted for a sex-related offense. This decision ensured that minors “would receive services in a rehabilitative setting, bypass criminal sentencing, and avoid the permanent stigma associated with being adjudged a prostitute” (​TX​, 261).

Texas has also formulated a series of community-based alternatives to confinement of juveniles, such as mandating training for law enforcement, officials in the juvenile justice system, Department of Family Services, and all involved parties to allow them to identify potentially triggering practices. Texas also put in place means of rescuing children from unhealthy or unsafe environments, providing counseling, and providing basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing (​TX​, 262). Texas has also implemented “gender-responsive” and “trauma-informed” treatment that emphasizes physical and psychological safety, relationship building, and shared power with fellow girls (​TX, ​263). One of the components of Texas’ community-based approach is the implementation of transition houses that provide legal counsel, social services, and rehabilitation care for girls. Freedom Place and Refuge of Light are two transition homes that provide up to two years of residency, emergency beds for victims, counseling, shelter, food, and help with long-term placement. Alamo Area Coalition Against Trafficking plans to build high-risk victims’ facilities as an alternative to juvenile detention centers, and Letot Girls’ Residential Treatment Center is one of the largest gender-specific therapeutic programs for sexually abused girls. Letot works in conjunction with the Dallas juvenile justice system to provide six to nine months of highly structured residential living, including an in-house charter school, yoga and sports, an intensive program focusing on girl-specific issues, and the inclusion of girls’ family in conflict resolution. (​TX, ​264) These transition programs serve to rehabilitate girls and help them develop psychosocial abilities, like receiving educational and vocational training. This kind of training is vital to girls’ rehabilitation, as abused girls are at risk of becoming disengaged in school because of their trauma, which increases their risk of delinquency and arrests (​TX, ​265).

As a result of these measures, Texas went from one of the worst states for sex trafficking to a highly-ranked state by Polaris and Shared Hope, two organizations whose mission is to eradicate human trafficking (​TX, ​267). Further, Texas saw a significant decrease in arrests of minor girls after implementing these programs, proving that diverting girls from the juvenile justice system through rehabilitative efforts works.

Connecticut & Maine

Connecticut has also made a concerted effort to intercept the abuse-to-prison pipeline. In 1999, the state created the Court Supportive Services Division, which provides alternatives to detention and probation (​Improving, ​7). Connecticut has also increased grants given to help identify the unique needs of girls and how to improve the juvenile justice system to address these needs. (For example, grants helped fund a new position, the Program Manager for Girls’ Services) (​Improving​, 9). Connecticut has also passed laws requiring gender-responsive programming for juveniles and prohibiting detention of status offenders, creating Family Support Centers to divert status offenders instead (​Improving​, 10). Maine has been especially proactive in reevaluating how status offenders are treated, ceasing the practice of detention in favor of providing them with short-term emergency services, counseling, clothing, comprehensive healthcare, education and employment services, case management and referral services, independent living skills training, and aftercare and follow up services (​Dismantling​).

Recommendations: Trauma-Informed Methods

In order to stop criminalizing girls’ trauma and break the abuse-to-prison pipeline, it is important to decriminalize status offenses and minor girls engaged in sex trafficking, divert them from the juvenile justice system, and improve conditions of facilities for girls who are confined. First, we can strengthen the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, which regulates the conditions of youth confinement and delinquency prevention (​Girls’ Story, ​15). Strengthening this act will allow governments to enforce its recommendations, including accountability mechanisms such as public reports, increased funds for trauma-informed programs and services, training for police, probation officers, and judges on trauma, and increased research on the needs of justice-involved girls. Another act that should be strengthened is the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which mandates the screenings of inmates for a history of sexual abuse and requires adequate physical and mental healthcare within two weeks of intake (​Girls Story​, 16).

We should also make sure all officials involved in the juvenile justice system are trained on the symptoms and impact of trauma on youth so they are best equipped to identify and assist children with a history of abuse. Further, juvenile justice systems should utilize a “sequential intercept model” (​SAMHSA)​ that helps girls recognize the impact of trauma in their lives and find support, help them build and restore relationships, and help them avoid entry into the system. Juvenile justice personnel should be able to divert abused youth at every point of intercept. Police officers can recognize the signs of trauma pre-arrest and refer her to a diversionary program that can meet her needs; probation officers can screen for a history of abuse or mental health problems upon intake; judges can choose to send girls to diversionary programs rather than institutionalize them; jail personnel can learn to recognize potential triggers in detention centers and try to mitigate these triggers.

While the best solution would be to divert as many girls from confinement as possible, if girls must be confined, the conditions of these facilities should be modified to create a trauma-informed space. Staff should be trained on the effects of trauma, programs should be implemented to help girls cope with their trauma while detained, and operational practices should be designed to help women navigate their institutional settings. There are seven areas in which correctional settings may be modified to be trauma-informed: intake and screening, assessment and classification, case planning, staff-inmate interactions, discipline, programming and treatment, medical and mental health services., and discharge, transition, and reentry (​NRCJIW​, 6). During intake and screening, staff can allow youth to choose where they sit in a safe, secure intake space, make youth aware of what questions will be asked of them, and make them aware of policies, particularly the ones that are designed to ensure their safety. During assessment and classification and case planning, staff can collaborate with the inmate and be cognizant of trauma symptoms. In staff-inmate interactions, particularly in the case of discipline, staff can learn how to de-escalate using a relaxing tone of voice and passive body language, and use isolation as a last resort. Detention centers should also work to implement programming and treatment for girls in detention, allowing them to maintain and gain skills and education while receiving treatment for their trauma and related issues. Further, facilities should make sure they provide necessary physical and mental healthcare and that it is readily available to youth. Finally, detention centers should implement programs to ready girls for reentry into their communities once they leave detention.