Report: State-Run Juvenile Facilities Have Highest Rate of Sexual Violence

WASHINGTON – Substantiated incidents of sexual violence occur at a higher rate at state-run juvenile facilities than at any other type of correctional facility, according to a report by the Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The report found a total of 2,100 substantiated incidents of sexual violence in 2004 at 2,700 state and federal prisons, local jails and juvenile facilities. The study, which covered a population of 1.7 million inmates – 79 percent of adults and juveniles incarcerated in the United States at midyear 2004 – revealed that out of every 1,000 juveniles at state-run facilities, 5.15 were subjected to substantiated sexual violence. The rate is about 10 times greater than at state-run prisons for adults, where one out of every 2,000 inmates was a victim of sexual violence.

A total of 8,210 allegations were reported at all of the facilities studied. About 55 percent were found to be false or there was not enough evidence to substantiate the claim. About one-third of the allegations were substantiated and about 15 percent were still under investigation while the survey was under way.

In accordance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, information for the report was compiled from Jan. 1 to June 15 from records filed in 2004. It is the first national survey of sexual violence at correctional facilities.

The report also found:

• Staff sexual misconduct accounted for 42 percent of the allegations; 37 percent involved inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts; 11 percent were staff sexual harassment allegations; and 10 percent involved abusive sexual contact.
• Males were the victims and perpetrators in 90 percent of substantiated inmate-to-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts in prisons and jails.
• Females were the perpetrators in 67 percent of staff sexual misconduct incidents in state prisons, while 69 percent of the victims were male. At local jails, females were the victims of staff sexual misconduct 70 percent of the time and the perpetrator was male in 65 percent of the incidents.

Although the report sheds some light on the sexual violence at correctional facilities, the BJS says records alone are not completely reliable to gauge the full scope of the issue. The report states that fear of retaliation, embarrassment, a code of silence and lack of trust in staff may prevent inmates from reporting sexual violence.