(Photo via T. Etna)

Writer: T. Etna 

Trigger warning: Discussions of sexual assault of minors and death

Please read with care.

Cornelius Frederick was a 16-year-old black boy who died screaming, “I can’t breathe,” in 2020. He was attacked en masse by staff at his “therapeutic boarding school” after flicking a piece of bread at his friend during lunch. The Torch published a detailed article about this case in November 2022.

You might think that after all the marches and “reforms” of 2020, Cornelius’s killers would be punished. You would be wrong.

Only two of the seven staff involved in the restraint were charged, and the case was dragged out for nearly four years. The two men spent this time at home since they were out on bail. 

They pleaded “no contest” to manslaughter and received a sentence of one day with one day credit, plus 18 months probation and fees.

In other words, they only went to jail for long enough to have their mugshots taken.  

The troubled teen industry that killed Cornelius consumes $23 billion of public funds a year. Cornelius got no justice, but the Senate Committee on Finance started paying attention. 

This June, the Committee released a report, “Warehouses of Neglect: How Taxpayers are Funding Systemic Abuse in Youth Residential Treatment Facilities.” 

This 136-page report documents extensive physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in these facilities, which are endemic to the operating model. It also notes that child welfare agencies place kids in these facilities with no diagnoses whatsoever.  

Cornelius’ story is one of two featured in an introductory section of the report. It is followed by the story of an unnamed girl in a facility run by Acadia. On multiple occasions, this teenage girl (called “B.” here) was knocked down and vaginally cavity searched by multiple staff in retaliation for refusing a strip search. 

Subjectively, such treatment is indistinguishable from gang rape of a minor. The report has a major flaw in that it shies away from using the label “rape” to refer to medically-themed sexual assaults such as this. Although B.’s experiences are referred to as sexually abusive later in the report, the Committee seems more concerned with inappropriate touching than the incident itself.  

There is a reason for this. The DSM V, the diagnostic system used by mental health professionals in the US, defines child sexual abuse as any sexual act involving a child that is intended to provide sexual gratification to a parent, caregiver, or other individual who has responsibility. Child sexual abuse officially doesn’t count unless the perpetrator enjoys it. 

This allows institutions to intentionally inflict sexual trauma upon children for the purpose of control or punishment. 
 

This practice will not disappear easily. Medically themed assault (which may take the form of forced or coerced pelvic exams) is rarely subject to legal structure and may even be justified as a “check” for sexual abuse by non-medical actors. Minors are especially vulnerable to this since minors are presumed to be incompetent to refuse examination. 

The medical establishment has long shown callous disregard for consent and human dignity. Medical boards, universities, and the law may allow known predatory physicians to operate for decades. 

Acadia minimized the assault of B. by assuring the Committee that medical staff were present and that their company only committed the crime to patients as part of a “care plan.”
 

Unfortunately, the Committee did not challenge Acadia’s implicit assertion that the profession of a perpetrator makes abuse okay. 

Ultimately, this is a social problem. It is somewhat parallel to the issue of marital rape.

Before the 1970s, marital rape was legal in every US state, and it was not illegal in all states until 1993. Assault by a husband wasn’t considered real, and it was not spoken of. Today, sexual assault by medical or pseudo-medical personnel is not considered real, and it is not spoken of.  

One of the most horrific crimes, the gang rape of minors, is openly allowed and publicly funded as long as the perpetrators claim to be professionals who don’t enjoy it. 

We need to stop giving the medical profession a pass.