We have seen children in an Arizona juvenile detention center tied hand and foot to their beds, and a Washington State facility in which two children were held for 5 days at a time in a cell with only 25 square feet of floor space. In the training school in Oregon children were put in filthy, roach-infested isolation cells for weeks at a time. In the Idaho training school, children were punished by being put in strait jackets, and being hung, upside down, by their ankles. Abuse in the foster care system is also not confined to San Fran- cisco. In Kentucky, we represent a handicapped child who was regular- ly deprived of food and care, so that at 8 years of age he weighed only 17 pounds.
Abuses also occur in mental health and educational systems.
In the State mental hospital in South Carolina, children who attempt- ed to commit suicide were stripped to their underwear, bound by their ankles and wrists to the corners of their beds, and injected with psychotropic drugs. In the Phoenix Indian High School in Arizona, Indian children found intoxicated on school grounds were handcuffed to the fence surrounding the institution, and left there overnight. In a private treatment and special education facility in Utah, children were locked in closets for punishment, grabbed by the hair and thrown against walls, and given lie-detector tests as part of their therapy. We know about these practices because we have had to litigate to stop them, often with local attorneys and with other programs like the Legal Services Corporation-supported National Center for Youth Law. I have also attached articles on some of these practices to my statement.