US House Subcommittee Hears Testimony on BJS Study

Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA-03) convened a hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 23, in response to the BJS Study that found Virginia had troubling levels of sexual abuse in detention facilities.   before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, testimony was heard from the following witnesses:

• Brenda V. Smith
  Professor of Law
  Washington College of Law at American University
  Washington, DC
• Troy Erik Isaac
  North Hollywood, CA
• Bernard Warner
  Chief Deputy Secretary for Juvenile Justice
  Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Division of Juvenile justice
  Sacramento, CA
• Gabriel A. Morgan
  Sheriff
  Newport News, VA
• Grace Bauer
  Campaign for Youth Justice
  Washington, DC

The witnesses’ names link to their written testimony, but it is also reproduced below for your convenience.

Updated April 4:  A video stream of the hearing is finally available!  If you have Real Player, you can view the testimony and questioning by following this link.

JLARC and DJJ Respond to DJJ Study

At a recent hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, Public Safety Subcommittee, the Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission alleged discrepancies with the recent BJS Study, in an effort to minimize the impact of the study’s shocking findings about sexual abuse in the Commonwealth’s juvenile detention centers.  The Commission refuted, among other issues, the survey methodology and sample selection processes.

The outgoing director of the Department of Juvenile Justice, Barry Green, also testified.  He attempted to keep the gravity of the allegations strong while buffering the public’s initial impressions.

Below the jump, a copy of the LJARC Report and the presentation offered on behalf of the DJJ.

RTD: JLARC Responds to BJS Study

JLARC Faults Study of Sexual Abuse of Juvenile Offenders

by Frank Green
January 30, 2010

The General Assembly’s watchdog agency yesterday challenged a federal study on sexual abuse in juvenile correctional centers in Virginia and across the country.

This month, the Virginia Senate Finance Committee asked the state’s Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission to review the study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. That study, a first-of-its-kind report, found that 12 percent of 9,189 incarcerated youths surveyed across the U.S. alleged they had been sexually victimized behind bars.

Officials with the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice were stung that two of its four facilities included in the report — the Culpeper and Bon Air juvenile correctional centers — ranked among the 13 said to have the highest rates of victimization in the country.

WaPo Article on BJS Study

Justice study tracks rape, sexual abuse of juvenile inmates

By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 8, 2010

The Justice Department reported Thursday that 12 percent of incarcerated juveniles, or more than 3,200 young people, had been raped or sexually abused in the past year by fellow inmates or prison staff, quantifying for the first time a problem that has long troubled lawmakers and human rights advocates.

The report comes as those advocates say that the Obama administration is moving too slowly on reforms that would reduce rape in U.S. prisons and as corrections officials are pressing Justice to overhaul reform proposals it is reviewing.

Four former commissioners on a blue-ribbon prison rape panel that spent years studying the issue say they fear that authorities are deferring to concerns by corrections officials that reforms would cost too much, while not focusing enough on prison safety and the effects of abuse on inmates.

RTD Article on BJS Study

Va. Juvenile Centers Cited in Report On Sex Abuse
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Published Jan. 8, 2010

Nearly one out of every three youths at 13 juvenile detention facilities in the U.S. have reported some type of sexual victimization, according to a government study issued yesterday. The facilities include one in Bon Air and one in Culpeper County.

The study found widespread reports of youth sex abuse at correctional centers.

The Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice was shocked that it had two facilities on the list, spokesman Bruce Twyman said. In the past year, the department had increased training for staff and upgraded video surveillance to combat sexual abuse, he said.

BJS Study Shows Disturbing Levels of Sexual Abuse

From the Bureau of Justice Statistics:

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

Allen J. Beck, Paul Guerino, Paige M. Harrison

January 7, 2009 NCJ 228416

Presents data from the 2008-09 National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC), conducted in 195 juvenile confinement facilities between June 2008 and April 2009, with a sample of over 9,000 adjudicated youth. The report provides national-level and facility-level estimates of sexual victimization by type of activity, including youth-on-youth sexual contact, staff sexual misconduct, and level of coercion. It also includes an analysis of the experience of sexual victimization, characteristics of youth most at risk to victimization, where the incidents occur, time of day, characteristics of perpetrators, and nature of the injuries. Finally, it includes estimates of the sampling error for selected measures of sexual victimization and summary characteristics of victims and incidents. The report and appendix tables provide a listing of results for sampled state and large locally or privately operated facilities, as required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-79). Facilities are listed alphabetically by state with estimated prevalence rates of sexual victimization as reported by youths during a personal interview and based on activity in the 12 months prior to the interview or since admission to the facility, if shorter.

Highlights include the following:

* This report presents findings from the first National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC), representing 26,550 adjudicated youth held nationwide in state operated and large locally or privately operated juvenile facilities. Overall, 91% of youth in these facilities were male; 9% were female.
* About 12% of youth in state juvenile facilities and large non-state facilities (representing 3,220 youth nationwide) reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission, if less than 12 months.
* About 2.6% of youth (700 nationwide) reported an incident involving another youth and 10.3% reported an incident involving staff.

After the jump, the accompanying press release and links to more information: