70 girls sexually assaulted in Los Angeles County juvenile camps, allege lawsuits

At least 70 girls who passed through Los Angeles County juvenile camps and detention facilities were sexually assaulted by probation and detention officers over the course of at least three decades, according to expanded litigation filed Thursday.

The two new lawsuits replace and expand on a similar lawsuit filed in March, where over 20 women said they were sexually assaulted over the course of a dozen years at Camp Joseph Scott, the county’s all-girls juvenile detention facility.

The alleged abuse occurred from 1985 to 2019 at Camp Scott, Camp Kenyon Scudder, Camp Challenger, the Dorothy Kirby Center, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, Central Juvenile Hall and other locations across L.A. County, reports The Los Angeles Times.

“The Los Angeles County juvenile probation system has been infested with a culture of child sexual abuse for decades,” Courtney Thom, a former sex-crimes prosecutor and one of the Orange County litigators handling the lawsuits, told The L.A. Times.

The new lawsuits allege that the abuse escalated from with probation officers watching young girls shower. The alleged abusers were often left alone with female juveniles, which violates county and state policy.

Many girls say they were forced to continue meeting their abusers after leaving the camps, fearing they would be returned to juvenile hall if they refused.

Despite prior scrutiny, some officers were able to “remain in a position of authority and trust” and find more victims among the

One officer who became acting assistant director at Camp Scott, Thomas Jackson, is accused of sexually abusing 15 girls.

“Vulnerable children often enter the system because of abuse they have suffered at home or on the streets,” Thom said.

“The probation system should offer these youthful offenders restorative justice instead of perpetuating their cycle of abuse.”