fact sheet

march 2009

Incarcerated Youth at Extreme
Risk of Sexual Abuse

W

e ARE supposedly
in these youth facilities
to help rehabilitate us so
we can be law-abiding adults…. I
experienced the most damaging and
emotionally devastating treatment
of my life thus far when I was in a
youth correctional facility….
— Survivor Cyryna Pasion1

A

t any given time, more

than 100,000 juveniles under
the age of 21 are incarcerated
in the United States, with more
than 10,000 detainees under the age of 18
held in adult prisons and jails.2 Whether in
adult facilities or housed with other youth,
juvenile detainees are at alarming risk for
sexual abuse.
Data about prisoner rape in general are
sparse, and the prevalence rate of sexual
violence among juveniles is particularly under-researched. According to the Bureau of
Justice Statistics (BJS), more than 4,000
reports of sexual abuse were reported to juvenile corrections authorities in 2005 and
2006, resulting in nearly 17 allegations of
sexual violence per 1,000 youth held in juvenile facilities.3 A 2005 BJS study of sexual
abuse reported in adult prisons and jails
found that young inmates were at heightened risk for abuse in these facilities as well.4
These alarming statistics are still considered
to underestimate the problem significantly
as very few instances of sexual violence are
reported to officials. When asked directly
about sexual victimization by the BJS, adult
prisoners reported 15 times higher rates of
abuse than was reported to officials.5
Survivors of sexual violence in detention
are up against multiple barriers to reporting the abuse they have endured, such as
fear of stigma and further assaults. Young
survivors face additional barriers, such
as a relative lack of experience in corrections settings and a common fear of adult
authority figures. Moreover, detainees in
juvenile facilities are often afforded less

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access to legal resources than inmates in
adult facilities.6
In juvenile detention settings, boys are most
likely to be abused by another detainee,
while girls are at greatest risk for abuse by
male staff.7 Like in adult prisons and jails,
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning (LGBTQ) youth in juvenile detention are disproportionately victimized.8
In particular, transgender girls are often
tormented by constant sexual harassment,
as they tend to be placed in boys’ facilities,
in accordance with their birth gender. JDI
believes that corrections officials must consider sexual orientation and gender identification, not just birth gender, in making housing decisions and in assessing an
inmate’s vulnerability for sexual abuse.
In girls’ facilities, youth known to have a
history of prostitution are chief targets for
abuse at the hands of staff perpetrators.9
Staff abuse of detained girls is greatly facilitated by the U.S. policy of allowing male
officers to work in all areas within girls’ detention centers10 — a policy that violates
international human rights standards.
Although the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act prohibits detaining
juveniles with adults except in very limited circumstances,11 this protection does
not apply to youth who are prosecuted as
adults. In some states, minors as young as
16 are tried as and housed with adults.12
JDI believes that juveniles should never be
incarcerated with adults and that use of the
adult criminal justice system to prosecute
juveniles should be minimized.
march 2009 | fact sheet

fact sheet
Endnotes
1 Elimination of Prison Rape: Focus on Juveniles, Hearing before the National Prison Rape
Elimination Commission ( June 1, 2006) (testimony of Cyryna Pasion).
2 Sarah Livsey, Melissa Sickmund & Anthony Sladky, Office of Juvenile Justice
and Delinquency Prevention, Juvenile Residential Facility Census, 2004: Selected
Findings 2 (2009) (noting that nearly 95,000 juveniles were in juvenile residential placements
in 2004); William J. Sabol & Heather Couture, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prison
Inmates at Midyear, 2007 9 (2008) (calculating that more than 2,600 juveniles under the age
of 18 were incarcerated in adult state prisons in 2007); William J. Sabol & Todd D. Minton,
Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jail Inmates at Midyear, 2007 10 (2008) (estimating the
average daily population of people under 18 years old in local jails at more than 7,600).
3 Allen J. Beck, Devon B. Adams & Paul Guerino, Bureau of Justice Statistics,
Sexual Violence Reported by Juvenile Correctional Authorities, 2005-06 (2008)
(calculating that the estimated total number of sexual violence allegations was 2,047 in 2005
and 2,025 in 2006).
4 Allen J. Beck & Paige M. Harrison, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sexual Violence
Reported by Correctional Authorities, 2005 (2006).
5 Allen J. Beck & Paige M. Harrison, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sexual
Victimization in State and Federal Prisons Reported by Inmates, 2007 (2007).At the
time of this writing, the BJS was completing its first-ever survey about sexual abuse with
juvenile detainees, which is scheduled to be released in late 2009.
6 See, e.g., Alexander s. v. Boyd, 876 F. Supp. 773, 790 (D.S.C. 1995) (holding that juvenile
detainees had no constitutional right to a law library).
7 Howard Snyder & Melissa Sickmund, Natiional Center for Juvenile Justice:
Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report 321 (2006).
8 For more information about the severe danger of sexual abuse facing LGBTQ detainees, see
Just Detention International, Fact Sheet, LGBTQ Detainees Chief Targets for Sexual Abuse
in Detention (October 2007).
9 Human Rights Watch & the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Custody
and Control: Conditions of Confinement in New York’s Juveniles Prisons for Girls
63-64 (2005).
10 Id. at 63-71.

About Just Detention
International (JDI)

J

ust Detention International ( JDI) is a
human rights organization that seeks to
end sexual abuse in all forms of detention.

All of JDI ’s work takes place within the
framework of international human rights
laws and norms. The sexual assault of detainees, whether committed by corrections staff
or by inmates, is a crime and is recognized
internationally as a form of torture.
JDI has three core goals for its work: to ensure government accountability for prisoner
rape; to transform ill-informed public attitudes about sexual violence in detention; and
to promote access to resources for those who
have survived this form of abuse.
JDI is concerned about the safety and wellbeing of all detainees, including those held
in adult prisons and jails, juvenile facilities,
immigration detention centers, and police
lock-ups, whether run by government agencies or by private corporations on behalf of
the government.
When the government takes away someone’s
freedom, it incurs a responsibility to protect that person’s safety. All inmates have
the right be treated with dignity. No matter
what crime someone has committed, sexual
violence must never be part of the penalty.

11 42 U.S.C. § 5633 (a) (13), (14). State delinquency agencies that fail to comply with this
and other requirements within the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act will lose
their federal funding.
12 Three states consider 16-year-olds to be adults as a matter of law; ten states define 17year-olds as adults, and all states have provisions within their criminal justice laws allowing
for youth who commit certain crimes and/or have had prior contacts with the juvenile and
criminal justice systems to be treated as adults. See Christopher Hartney, National Council
on Crime and Delinquency, Fact Sheet, Youth Under Age 18 in the Adult Criminal Justice
System (2006).

just detention international 	
3325 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 340
Los Angeles, CA 90010
Tel: (213) 384-1400
Fax: (213) 384-1411
East Coast Office
1025 Vermont Ave., NW, Third Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Tel: (202) 580-6971
Fax: (202) 638-6056
info@justdetention.org
www.justdetention.org

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march 2009 | fact sheet