Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008-09

January 2010:

The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-79) (PREA) requires the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to carry out a comprehensive statistical review and analysis of the incidents and effects of prison rape for each calendar year. This report fulfills the requirement under Sec. 4(c)(2)(B)(ii) of the Act to provide a list of juvenile correctional facilities according to the prevalence of sexual victimization.

Between June 2008 and April 2009, BJS completed the first National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC) of 166 state-owned or operated facilities and 29 locally or privately operated facilities. The survey, conducted by Westat (Rockville, MD), was restricted to juvenile confinement facilities that held adjudicated youth for at least 90 days. Facilities were excluded if fewer than 25% of the youth in the acility had been adjudicated, the facility held fewer than 10 adjudicated youth, or if the facility was locally or privately operated and held fewer than 105 youth. All state facilities holding 90 or more youth were included. State facilities with fewer
than 90 youth were sampled proportionate to the number of adjudicated youth held, based on the 2006 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement. Non-state (locally or privately operated) juvenile facilities holding 105 or more youth were initially included, but during the course of the survey, this criterion was increased to 150. At least one facility in each state and the District of Columbia was selected to participate in the survey.

For the remainder of this report: by Allen J. Beck, Ph.D., Paige M. Harrison, and Paul Guerino, BJS Statisticians.