David Kaiser and Lovisa Stannow
Troy Erik, who was repeatedly raped by fellow inmates when he was imprisoned at age twelve. He spent the next two decades in and out of prison; he now works as a peer counselor and speaks to young people about his experience. (Photograph by James Stenson)
When Troy Erik was first imprisoned in California, his cellmate made the introductions for both of them. “He said to me, ‘Your name is gonna be Baby Romeo, and I’m Big Romeo.’ He was saying he would be my man.” Troy was twelve at the time. A skinny, terrified little kid, he accepted the prisoner’s bargain being imposed on him: protection for sex. He wasn’t protected, though. Soon he was attacked and raped at night by another cellmate, a sixteen-year-old. He told staff he was suicidal, hoping to be placed in solitary confinement, but they ignored him; the rapes continued.
In 2005, the Department of Justice investigated a juvenile facility in Plainfield, Indiana, where kids sexually abused one another so often and in such numbers that staff created flow charts to track the incidents. Investigators found “youths weighing under 70 pounds who engaged in sexual acts with youths who weighed as much as 100 pounds more than them.”
key quote: “Not one employee of the Texas Youth Commission during that six-year period was sent to prison for raping the children in his or her care.”
