It shouldn't be too hard to tie a few people to the abuse at these schools, then police say, "give us names and help us understand who was responsible at the top, or you're looking at many, many years in prison for child abuse and we'll just find someone else who'll talk"
You know, the same way prosecutors go after mobsters and drug rings
In Luzerne County, PA, judges were paid off by local juvenile detention centers to sentence kids there. Over years, they sentenced many, many kids, in court, for absurdities (e.g., I think one kid was sentenced for throwing a sandwich at their teacher). Much of the court system and local legal community had to know; nobody put a stop to it. Judicial conduct boards and the PA Supreme Court were appealed to; they didn't act.
I forget how it finally came to light, but it got into the hands of federal rather than local state prosecutors. That's often how local corruption is stopped: the feds aren't tied to the local political system. The defendants, the Luzerne County judges, were clearly guilty of heinus crimes, ruining the lives of all these kids who spent high school in juvinile jail (imagine how your life would turn out). The federal prosecutors gave the defendants a sweetheart plea deal. Thankfully, the federal judge rejected the settlement and they were convicted and given long sentences.
(The Kids For Cash documentary tells the story.)
How does it not result in mass prosecutions? Look in the mirror. Me too. What corruption is going on in our communities? How about the IT community?
My advice was "look in the mirror"; I understand the parent's advice as "don't look in the mirror, there can't possibly be anything to see there".
Responses like that are why we see nothing, hear nothing (and shut it down - discredit it, attack it, etc. - immediately if we do), and do nothing. I expect that people in Luzerne County had denials too. People can talk about and around these things infinitely, and they do.
Therefore the only question we should ask is, what are we going to do?
Edit: Abusing children isn't the only corruption, in case that's how you interpreted it. The amount of scams, fraud, mass surveillance, manipulation, etc. in our industry is astounding.
On a small scale, I have been approached by acquaintances who suggested they'd sign off on a large contract for me to make some trivial app if I paid them a percentage under the table.
Shorter answer, lots of americans are hard-core authoritarians and this is what "law & order" actually means.
And such "schools" are certainly all about enforcing the existing social order, upon "residents" who the Cops & Co. are not favorably inclined toward.
What are you interested in? I know it's a provocative question, but blaming some 'system' is 90% of the problem. What am I interested in? My actions speak.
A teen not abiding by the boundaries of society may be dealt with in a way that seems viciously over-reactive because maintaining order is the entire focus of each element of the legal/judicial system. The degree of infraction is less important than respecting the authority of the system itself. Like be an asshole to a judge or cop and see what happens - it shouldn't matter as much as it does, but everyone instantly feels the raw danger of doing such a thing because of this dynamic.
The problem is that "testing boundaries" is a natural phase of growing up and is really about coming to grips with your own identity and values. There is a huge disconnect between how "the system" (or people serving roles within the system) approach these situation vs. any actual threat to the system itself.
Some evils are caused by the intent of one individual. Remove that individual, or change their behaviour, no more problem. In other cases the situation is perpetuated by a structure of social relations which isn't visible if you only consider individuals.
Yes, ultimately individuals have to take responsibility and take action, but that is necessary but not sufficient. To understand what it will take to cure the disease requires understanding 'the system'.
Suppose in this case, one year we manage to remove all abusive staff from these schools. That's a solution at the level of individual responsibility. And well worth doing. But soon enough abusive individuals will work their way into these positions again. Only by recognising that this system is inherently prone to result in abuse can you figure out how to prevent it.
That said, I agree wholeheartedly with the conclusion in the second paragraph.
Unfortunately, you only ever hear about anecdotes because there isn't a lot of genuine research done about efficacy, and since its teens, its all very restricted.
And yet, the majority of the kids there are placed there by CPS, not by parents.