to stop ill-treatment of children at the Jena Juvenile Justice Center in Louisiana. Children held there were routinely subjected to excessive force and prolonged isolation, and deprived of shoes, blankets and medical care. Chemical agents were also abused. In November 1999 a CS gas grenade, designed for outdoor use, was used in a dormitory containing 46 children. The children fled outside where they were made to lie face down on concrete, some only in their underwear, for hours. Several were allegedly sprayed in the face with mace while on the ground. The memorandum in support of the injunction noted that “penalofficers at Jena have rubbed inmates’ faces into cement floors, taken away clothing, slammed youths against doors, walls, and floors, and forced naked juveniles to squat with their buttocks inthe air while searches are performed ... evidence exists showing officers actually have encouraged peer violence.”The situations mentioned above also apply to other institutions such as orphanages and refugee centers that in addition can be vulnerable to a great deal of exploitation by being used like subjects in drug experimentation and undergo cruelty, negligence, confinements and corporal punishment....
