NCJ Number
233999
Date Published
October 2010
Length
86 pages
Annotation
This report examines the incidences of sexual victimization in juvenile correctional facilities.
Abstract
A 2010 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) found that during 2008-09, 12.1 percent of the 26,551 adjudicated youth held in State or large non-State facilities reported experiencing sexual violence; 10.3 percent of the reported incidents involved facility staff members, while 2.6 percent involved other youths; facilities that housed only female youth offender had the highest rates of youth-on-youth victimization, compared to male only facilities which had the highest rates of staff sexual misconduct; and smaller facilities had lower victimization rates than larger facilities. Data for the BJS report, published in accordance with the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), were obtained from surveys of juvenile offenders regarding incidences of sexual victimization in juvenile facilities. Also in accordance with PREA, a Review Panel on Prison Rape conducted public hearings to identify, based on the findings in the BJS report, the common characteristics of: victims and perpetrators of sexual victimization in juvenile correctional facilities; two facilities with the lowest prevalence of sexual victimization; and three facilities with the highest prevalence of victimization. This report contains the results of the hearings and offers general observations, identifies common themes found during the hearings, and presents a set of unresolved institutional questions that warrant further study. Appendixes