US children faced decades of torture in detention halls

Not only were the plaintiffs minors, they also were incarcerated, which marks the abuse under the "colour of authority." Photo: Andrew Neel/Unsplash

For five decades, boys and girls in Los Angeles County juvenile camps and detention halls in the United States have suffered repeated sexual assaults at the hands of probation and detention officers, according to a lawsuit filed by nearly 300 former detainees.

Page after page of the 359-page lawsuit filed Dec 20 details allegations of systemic failures and horrific scenes of sexual abuse that lawyers say went unchecked by the LA County Probation Department, which operates the camps and halls.