12% juvenile inmates report sex abuse

January 08, 2010 12:20 PM

By SALVADOR HERNANDEZ

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

 

A new study found that about 12 percent of minors held in detention facilities across the country have suffered sexual victimization, either at the hands of other minors being held or staffers.
The first-of-its-kind study showed also showed that minors in private and government facilities were three to four times more likely to be victims of sexual abuse than adult inmates, a surprising revelation, said Allen Beck, chief of the federal Corrections Statistics Program at the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Orange County Juvenile Hall.

 

KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

"The difference in large is in staff misconduct," Beck said. "We did find a very high rate of staff misconduct, something we haven't reported or found before."
Included in the study was Orange County Juvenile Hall, a 434-bed facility located in the city of Orange that houses male and female minors. Of the 28 minors who completed the survey in the county facility, four percent – only one person -- reported sexual victimization. That's well below the national average.
The Orange County Probation Department, which oversees security in the facility, tries to stress the importance of ethics to probation officers, and discourages them from being alone with the minors, said Jeff Corp, public information officer for the department.
"If anything does occur and is brought to our attention, it's investigated and forwarded to the sheriff's department," Corp said.
Other facilities rated much higher, including 13 detention centers where nearly 1 out of 3 inmates reported abuse.
About 10 percent of reported incidents involved facility staffers, and nearly all of those complaints were against female staffers.
The study, "Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reporter by Youth, 2008-09" was done to comply with the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, and it was the first study to look at juvenile detention facilities, Beck said.
According to the study, about 26,550 juveniles are held in state, private or local facilities, of which more than 9,000 were included in the study.
The study identified 13 facilities were about one of every 10 inmates reported abuse, including Pendleton Juvenile Correctional Facility in Indiana; Corsicana Residential Treatment Center in Texas; Backbone Mountain Youth Center in Swanton, Md.; Samarkand Youth Development Center in Eagle Springs, N.C.; Cresson Secure Treatment Unit in Pennsylvania; and the Culpeper Juvenile Correctional Center, Long Term, in Mitchells, Va.; Victory Field Correctional Academy in Vernon, Texas; Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility; Shawono Center in Grayling, Mich.; Woodland Hills Youth Development Center in Nashville, Tenn.; L.E. Rader Center in Sand Springs, Okla.; Bon Air Juvenile Correctional Center in Virginia; New Jersey Training School in Monroe Township, N.J.
Of the 12 percent of minors that reported sexual abuse, about two-thirds said the act included force or coercion, Beck said.
The study also found that the longer the minor is in the facility, the more likely he or she is to report staff misconduct. "Relationships develop between youth and staff, inmates and staff," Beck said. "Those in time become improper."
That was the case in one of the most recent cases involving a probation officer and an underage inmate. In 2006, a 27-year-old Santa Fe Springs woman turned herself in after being charged with four misdemeanor counts of child annoyance. Elizabeth Gomez Nieto allegedly wrote letters to an underage inmate. She was one of two officers suspected of abusing an underage inmate there in 2006.
Female staff members -- particularly those under 30 years old who have been employed at the facility for less than six months -- are most likely to be involved, Beck said.
"Sometimes they involve contact that is unwanted," Beck said. "It may even involve consensual contact with youth, sometimes initiated by the minor, but it will still be illegal."
Those two cases are the most recent that have been investigated at the Orange County facility involving probation officers, Corp said.
In Sept. 2009, authorities also looked into allegations that an inmate was pinned down and assaulted by a 14- and 15-year-old inmate.
The study did not just include forcible rape, Beck said, but any type of unwanted, illegal or inappropriate sexual conduct.
The report will be forwarded to a prison rape review panel, Beck said.