LOS ANGELES, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- At least 70 girls incarcerated in Los Angeles County juvenile camps and detention facilities were sexually assaulted by probation and detention officers, with the abuse spanning more than three decades, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday, citing newly expanded litigation filed on Thursday.
The allegations follow a similar lawsuit filed in March in which 20 women said they were sexually assaulted over the course of a dozen years at Camp Joseph Scott, Los Angeles County's all-girls juvenile detention facility, reported the biggest newspaper on U.S. West Coast, adding that two new lawsuits filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court replace that case and expand on its accusations.
The alleged abuse occurred from 1985 to 2019 at multiple facilities across Los Angeles County. The lawsuits said that, in some instances, the same abusers found new victims as different girls entered the facilities over the years, the newspaper reported.
According to the report, the latest lawsuits, which include 51 victims younger than 40 and 19 plaintiffs over 40, allege that what began with probation officers watching young girls shower would escalate into sexual acts. Even after the girls left the camps, many were forced to continue sexual liaisons, often at motels, for fear of being returned to juvenile hall, the lawsuits state.
Courtney Thom, a former sex-crimes prosecutor and one of the Orange County litigators handling the lawsuits, was quoted as saying by the newspaper that "the Los Angeles County juvenile probation system has been infested with a culture of child sexual abuse for decades."
"Vulnerable children often enter the system because of abuse they have suffered at home or on the streets," Thom said in the report, noting that "The probation system should offer these youthful offenders restorative justice instead of perpetuating their cycle of abuse."
A spokeswoman for Los Angeles County's Probation Department said "the department doesn't comment on pending litigation," according to the report.
