More than 200 people have filed lawsuits alleging sexual abuse inside Pennsylvania juvenile detention and treatment facilities since May.
The New York-based Levy Konigsberg firm filed on behalf of over 60 people, accusing government-run and private facilities of failing to protect their clients when they were children. The allegations date from over two decades ago until last year. The law firm stated that the survivors experienced similar patterns of abuse across various facilities, indicating systemic failures at these institutions in protecting children.
The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services is facing a new negligence and breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit, with the plaintiffs alleging sexual abuse by guards, counselors, and staff members at the Loysville Youth Development Center, the North Central Secure Treatment Unit in Danville, and the South Mountain Secure Treatment Unit near Chambersburg. The lawsuit claims that the state tolerated this longstanding, widespread pattern of abuse, failing the children in its care through decades of negligence.
The Department of Human Services has not commented on pending litigation but has recommended anyone suspecting child sexual abuse or harassment to call Pennsylvania’s child safety hotline, ChildLine, at 1-800-932-0313.
Other lawsuits were filed in federal and county courthouses in other parts of Pennsylvania, and the law firm has pursued similar litigation in Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, and Michigan.
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