officials are seldom thoroughly investigated, and even those cases that are prosecuted rarely result in a conviction.Torture often occurs when the police first apprehend their victim: the abuse may start on the street, in the police car, or under interrogation in police cells. Children are often held without their parents being informed of their whereabouts. This is significant because where children are held without access to relatives or legal counsel, the risk of physical abuse increases dramatically.Police officers who are not given adequate training or resources are likely to rely on torture as a method of investigation; in some countries the police are encouraged to use coercive methods against criminal suspects in response to high levels of crime. In some cases, the purpose is to extractinformation, or to obtain a “confession”, true or false. In others, punishment and humiliation appear to be the primary aim.In many countries, the treatment received by minors detained in juvenile centers seriously endangers their health and well-being. In the United States there have been complaints stating that the juvenile center’s staff has hit and kicked children under their care, have chained them, they have sprinkled them with chemical products and have used electroshock devices against them. For example, an investigation carried out by the Department of Justice in Kentucky concluded that the civil employees of a juvenile center regularly used paralyzing electroshock guns and pepper sprayers to control youngsters who did not collaborate and to separate those who fought. Children detained in that center also denounced that the civil staff often struck them.Children in custody, both girls and boys, are also vulnerable to rape and sexual abuse. Even the threat of rape — sometimes repeated night after night, while the child sits alone in a dark cell — can cause severe psychological trauma amounting to torture. Rap...
