Sexual Victimization Reported by Juvenile Correctional Authorities, 2007-12, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics (2016)

This special report from the Department of Justice analyzes allegations of sexual victimization of juveniles in state, local, and privately owned correctional facilities. Data comes from the Bureau of Juvenile Statistics’ Survey of Sexual Victimization. The survey includes reports from all state juvenile systems and a sample of local and privately owned facilities. 

Report highlights include 9,494 allegations of sexual victimization from 2007 to 2012, 55% of which were youth-on-youth, while 45% were staff-on-youth. Moreover, in 2012 alone, 865 allegations came from state juvenile systems and 613 reports came from locally or privately owned facilities. One hundred and ninety-two of these allegations were substantiated through a follow-up investigation. Thirty-two percent of substantiated claims involved a staff perpetrator. Sexual victimization rates were substantially higher in state systems (5.9 per 1,000 youth) than private and locally owned facilities (2.3 per 1,000 youth).

The reasons for the differences in rates are not known; the rates may reflect that state systems hold youth with more serious behavioral problems and other risk factors associated with sexual victimization.  The rates may also reflect variations in reporting capabilities.