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FAST FACTS:
(Memphis 11/17/2009) "They had stopped to talk to him. At that point after a few minutes he had forced himself on her." says Mary Clark, an angry mother.
Her 15-year-old daughter was raped by a 16-year-old friend.
It happened at a Bartlett Park almost one year ago.
The teen boy was arrested and convicted. Clark thought he would be locked up for awhile.
But her daughter came face to face with the boy last month.
"My daughter had come home from the movies. She told me she had seen him at the movies." says Clark.
And talk about too close for comfort, Clark later learned the same boy who raped her daughter had been sent to live in a foster home, of all places, right across the street from her other daughter.
"He was just walking around like nothing happened. They put him in a Foster Home 2 miles from my house." says Clark.
It's a story that Juvenile Court Prosecutor Terre Fratesi has heard again and again.
Her office is full of files on dangerous kids that prosecutors got off the streets, only to have them back out in the public committing more crimes.
"Despite everything law enforcement does, everything the D.A.'s office does, despite everything juvenile court judges do, if a child gets right out of custody and is placed in a Foster Home in a nearby neighborhood to a victim, of house they broke into, for example, that victim's confidence in the system to protect them is destroyed." says Fratesi.
And many times there is nothing juvenile about these juvenile cases. Perhaps one of the most notorious involves Odie Buckhanon, a 17 year old arrested for raping and beating a woman in Frayser. The 2007 attack lasted four hours.
That woman was Ernestine Archer's daughter. She spoke with us last year.
"Every now and then she'll tell me pieces of what happened like she was telling me she could hear her bones cracking. She said she didn't know her body could bend like that." said Ernestine Archer in our interview last year.
A juvenile judge put Buckhanon in a state facility and ordered a mental evaluation. A year later, Buckhanon was back on the street charged with the gang rape of another Frayser woman, who was beaten with a power drill and tossed naked into a vacant yard.
- Juveniles, convicted of violent crimes, end up back on the streets
- Prosecutor blames Department of Children Services
- DCS says each case is evaluated and juveniles get treatement before release
(Memphis 11/17/2009) "They had stopped to talk to him. At that point after a few minutes he had forced himself on her." says Mary Clark, an angry mother.
Her 15-year-old daughter was raped by a 16-year-old friend.
It happened at a Bartlett Park almost one year ago.
The teen boy was arrested and convicted. Clark thought he would be locked up for awhile.
But her daughter came face to face with the boy last month.
"My daughter had come home from the movies. She told me she had seen him at the movies." says Clark.
And talk about too close for comfort, Clark later learned the same boy who raped her daughter had been sent to live in a foster home, of all places, right across the street from her other daughter.
"He was just walking around like nothing happened. They put him in a Foster Home 2 miles from my house." says Clark.
It's a story that Juvenile Court Prosecutor Terre Fratesi has heard again and again.
Her office is full of files on dangerous kids that prosecutors got off the streets, only to have them back out in the public committing more crimes.
"Despite everything law enforcement does, everything the D.A.'s office does, despite everything juvenile court judges do, if a child gets right out of custody and is placed in a Foster Home in a nearby neighborhood to a victim, of house they broke into, for example, that victim's confidence in the system to protect them is destroyed." says Fratesi.
And many times there is nothing juvenile about these juvenile cases. Perhaps one of the most notorious involves Odie Buckhanon, a 17 year old arrested for raping and beating a woman in Frayser. The 2007 attack lasted four hours.
That woman was Ernestine Archer's daughter. She spoke with us last year.
"Every now and then she'll tell me pieces of what happened like she was telling me she could hear her bones cracking. She said she didn't know her body could bend like that." said Ernestine Archer in our interview last year.
A juvenile judge put Buckhanon in a state facility and ordered a mental evaluation. A year later, Buckhanon was back on the street charged with the gang rape of another Frayser woman, who was beaten with a power drill and tossed naked into a vacant yard.
