WASHINGTON — Nearly one out of every three youths at 13 juvenile detention facilities - including one in Cresson, Cambria County - have reported some type of sexual victimization, according to a government study issued Thursday that found widespread reports of youth sex abuse at correctional centers.
Nationwide about 12 percent of youths held in state-run, privately run, or local facilities reported some type of sexual victimization, the Justice Department found in the first report of its kind. The rates varied widely between facilities.
Cresson Secure Treatment Unit was among the centers listed.
Victimization included forced sexual activity with another youth and all sexual activity with staff.
About 26,550 juveniles are held in such facilities around the country, and the survey – conducted for the government by Westat, a company based on Rockville, Md. – collected information from about 9,000 of them via anonymous computerized questionnaire. The survey was conducted from June 2008 through April 2009 and asked whether the young inmates had been abused in the previous year of detention.
About 10 percent of youths surveyed reported abuse involving facility staff people, and nearly all of those complaints were against female staffers, who made up less than half of the workers. About 2 percent of the reported abuse involving other young inmates.
Although advocates said the level of abuse wasn’t surprising, the prevalence of sexual abuse by staff, particularly female workers, was shocking, said Linda McFarlane, deputy executive director of Just Detention International, which fights to end sexual abuse of those who are detained.
The study identified six facilities where the survey found at least three out of every 10 inmates said they were sexually victimized while in custody: 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; and the Culpeper Juvenile Correctional Center, Long Term, in Mitchells, Va.
Another seven sites reported nearly as high levels of sexual abuse or victimization: Victory Field Correctional Academy in Vernon, Texas; Indianapolis Juvenile Correctional Facility; Shawono Center in Grayling, Michigan; 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.
