"No Place for Children: Voices From Juvenile Detention"

LINDA

Linda, 14, in her cell at juvenile detention.

"When I was small, 13, I put a rope around my neck and tried to jump from the fourth floor of the hospital."

She was an A student, by all accounts a normal child. But at age seven, she was sexually molested by her father. That trauma left her scared of strangers, prone to violent outbursts, and suicidal. As she grew older, her violence at home worsened; this time, at 14, she hit her mom and broke the car window. The latest outburst led to another stay in Juvenile, her fifteenth or twentieth visit.