Imagine being 10 years old and being led, along with your 6-year-old sibling, into the backseat of a police cruiser. The police promise to take you home to your parents. It’s only three blocks away, and you know they are searching for you frantically.
But instead of taking you home, the police detain you there, in the car, for three hours, without a meal or access to a restroom. The sun sets, night falls. Eventually the cops take you to a facility maintained by Child Protective Services where you’re kept for another several hours. You still haven’t had any dinner. You aren’t reunited with your parents until 10:30 p.m., nearly six hours after your ordeal began.