ABSTRACT
Research on what works with system-involved women stresses the importance of placing female delinquents in environments that guarantee physical, emotional, and cultural safety. In other words, juvenile institutions must be safe spaces. Trauma therapy, and (re)victimization prevention are both essential elements that promote feelings of safety for adolescent incarcerated girls. Unfortunately, these elements are not only nearly absent in juvenile detention, but sparse attempts to introduce them are nullified by the abusive treatment detained girls are commonly subjected to. Throughout the chapter, the stories that the girls relate highlight why trauma therapy is necessary and how its absence often breeds further system involvement, especially when it is triggered by abusive and humiliating experiences inside institutions claiming to protect and treat, such as the one under study.
