This report provides statistics on allegations of sexual victimization in juvenile justice facilities and their outcomes for calendar years 2019 through 2022. Findings are based on the Survey of Sexual Victimization (SSV), which BJS has conducted for juvenile justice facilities annually since 2005 to meet the requirements of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA; P.L. 108–79). It presents counts and rates of allegations of youth-on-youth and staff-on-youth sexual victimization in state juvenile systems and in locally or privately operated juvenile facilities. Summary-level information is presented separately for each year from 2019 through 2022. Detailed information about substantiated incidents is aggregated for the years 2019 through 2022.
Highlights
- Juvenile justice administrators reported 3,610 allegations of sexual victimization in 2022, a 35% increase from 2021 (2,670).
- In 2022, there were 101.1 allegations of sexual victimization per 1,000 youths and 14.4 substantiated incidents per 1,000 youths.
- There were 450 allegations of youth-on-youth nonconsensual sexual acts, 630 of youth-on-youth abusive sexual contact, 1,380 of youth-on-youth sexual harassment, 690 of staff sexual misconduct, and 460 of staff sexual harassment in 2022.
- About 2 in 5 youth-on-youth (43%) and staff-on-youth (42%) incidents during 2019–2022 were reported by facility staff.