Allen J. Beck, Ph.D., Bureau of Justice Statistics

June 28, 2016    NCJ 249872

Describes the Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) activities to collect data and report on the incidence and effects of sexual victimization in correctional facilities, as required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA) (P.L. 108-79). The report summarizes BJS's efforts during 2015 and 2016, which included analyzing administrative records of sexual victimization in juvenile correctional facilities based on the Survey of Sexual Victimization (SSV) and collecting data on incidents that occurred in adult and juvenile facilities during 2014. In addition, BJS and its data collection agents, RTI International and Westat, conducted further analyses of previous inmate and youth self-report surveys to provide a more comprehensive understanding of facility- and individual-level indicators of sexual victimization. This reports meets the PREA requirement to report on BJS's activities for the preceding calendar year by June 30 of each year.

Highlights:

• Administrators of state juvenile correctional facilities reported 865 allegations of sexual victimization in 2012–a significant increase from the 735 allegations reported in 2011 and 690 in 2010. See Sexual Victimization Reported by Juvenile Correctional Authorities, 2007–12.
• The number of youth held in state juvenile systems declined sharply, from 38,580 at yearend 2006 to 19,095 at yearend 2012. As a result, the rate of sexual victimization allegations per 1,000 youth held in state juvenile systems more than doubled, from 19 per 1,000 youth in 2005 to 47 per 1,000 in 2012. See Sexual Victimization Reported by Juvenile Correctional Authorities, 2007–12.
• Administrators of local or private and Indian country juvenile facilities reported 613 allegations of sexual victimization in 2012. Based on 2-year rolling averages, the rate in 2012 was 13.5 per 1,000 youth—up from 7.2 per 1,000 in 2010. See Sexual Victimization Reported by Juvenile Correctional Authorities, 2007–12.
• Rates of youth-on-youth sexual victimization in female-only facilities (5.3%) were more than three times greater than those in male-only facilities (1.5%). See Facility-level and Individual-level Correlates of Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities, 2012.
• Youth-on-youth sexual assault was lowest in facilities (1.1%) when almost all youth in the facility reported that they first learned sexual assault was not allowed within the first 24 hours of arrival. See Facility-level and Individual-level Correlates of Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities, 2012.

Part of the PREA Data Collection Activities Series

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