Michigan Agrees to Pay $80 Million in Prison Sex Abuse Lawsuit

Although the department was required to incarcerate children convicted of certain crimes under Michigan law, “what they didn’t have to do” is subject children to sexual assaults by both staff and incarcerated adults, [lead attorney Deborah] LaBelle said. “What they didn’t have to do is put children in solitary confinement for months on end. So I think that also the fact that they paid $80 million in damages … means that they have to recognize the kind of harm they did.”

Note that Attorney General Dana Nessel, otherwise frequently a champion of #cjreform and of youth, fought to deny justice to teens and former teens raped in Michigan prisons just as hard as her predecessor did.