Deinstitutionalization, Street Children, and the Coming AIDS Epidemic in the Adolescent Population

Abstract

AbstractThe debate about the deinstitutionalization of status offenders has persisted for over a decade. Those in favor of deinstitutionalization maintain that coerced treatment in secure institutions has not proven beneficial to status offenders and locking‐up juveniles for noncriminal behavior violates their liberty interests. Those against deinstitutionalization argue it is not possible to treat someone who is not there (runaways) and while juveniles have the same liberty interests as adults, there are occasions for legitimate state restriction of those liberty interests. It is manifest that the advent of AIDS is such an occasion.Deinstitutionalization has allowed thousands upon thousands of juveniles to live on the streets of our cities. These children have no skills, no lawful means of supporting themselves, and thus are at the mercy of those who prey upon the powerless. The lifestyle of these children (high drug usage, prostitution, and promiscuity) places them directly in the path of AIDS. Their exposure and vulnerability to the disease are vast. Street children constitute a large reservoir of AIDS which could be the source of an AIDS epidemic in the overall adolescent population. Society will pay a horrific price unless there is concerted action now by providers of health care and social services to develop a strategy to contain AIDS within the street‐child population, and to prevent the spread of AIDS from them to the overall adolescent population.