Lancaster County Pays $400,000 to Minor Sexually Assaulted While in Its Care. Did the County Ignore the Signs?

Christina Sorenson, a Soros Fellow with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, has been studying instances of institutionalized child abuse in an effort to come up with policies to help mitigate it.

Sorenson has not studied the Stevenson case, but said unfortunately instances like this are not unusual.

“This is not a one-off,” she said.

Part of what she thinks contributes to the issue is a lack of a uniform system across agencies for how reports of abuse from juveniles should be handled. Facilities are required to have a grievance process when they feel their rights are violated, but each facility creates its own policy.