State Will Ask Juvenile Inmates If They've Been Victimized Behind Bars, Eric Berman, WIBC, January 8, 2010
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INDIANA NEWSState Will Ask Juvenile Inmates If They've Been Victimized Behind BarsFederal survey finds high rate of sexual misconduct claims at 2 facilitiesBy Eric Berman
1/8/2010The state will question every offender in Indiana's six juvenile prisons about whether they've been sexually abused, after a federal survey ranked two facilities among the worst in the U.S. for sexual victimization.
Indiana Department of Correction spokesman Douglas Garrison says the department already conducts surveys similar to one released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice. He says the federal findings show a victimization about triple what those studies found.
Garrison says it's unclear whether the gap in the findings represents a difference in the sample of offenders questioned, a reluctance to come forward to state officials with allegations, or something else. In light of the Justice Department study, he says investigators will interview all offenders, not just a sample.
Garrison says the department thoroughly investigates all allegations of sexual misconduct and will do so with any new charges that emerge.
The Justice Department survey found 46 of 127 offenders questioned at the Pendleton juvenile prison reported sexual conduct with staff or other inmates. The 36-percent rate ranks second-worst among 195 facilities surveyed nationwide.
23-percent of inmates questioned at the Indiana Girls School reported being sexually victimized in custody. The facility has since become the new home of the Indiana Women's Prison, with juvenile inmates transferred to a facility in Madison.
Victimization reports at juvenile prisons in Logansport and South Bend and at the Camp Summit Boot Camp in LaPorte were slightly below the national average of 12-percent. The Northeast Juvenile Correctional Facility in Fort Wayne was not included in the federal survey.
Four staffers at Pendleton were suspended last month over allegations they sexually abused inmates. Those charges were lodged after the April end date of the Justice Department's 10-month study.
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