The Risks Juveniles Face When They Are Incarcerated With Adults
by Jason Ziedenberg & Vincent Schiraldi
July 19th, 1997
Introduction
Close to a
century ago, the juvenile justice system was developed because children
were subjected to unspeakable atrocities in adult jails, and were
returned to society as hardened criminals. As the system developed, it
became clear that housing young offenders and adult prisoners together
was self-destructive and self-defeating.
Despite the lessons of history, Congress stands poised to reunite
adults and juveniles in the same prison system. The new juvenile
justice legislation calls for the jailing juveniles with adult
criminals, and would force states to transfer large numbers of young
offenders to adult prisons in order to be eligible for federal funds.
Child advocates, law enforcement officials, and criminologists have
urged Congress to consider the destructive effects of placing youth in
adult jails and prisons a substantial body of research shows that
placing youth in adult institutions accentuates criminal behavior after
release. 1
In a recent full page advertisement, sheriffs, district
attorneys and legal professionals explained why they think the proposed
legislation will make their jobs more difficult: "lock up a 13-year old
with murderers, rapists and robbers, and guess what he'll want to be
when he grows up?"2 Even John DiIulio, head of the
conservative Council on Crime in America - a group that has provided
much of the statistical and (flawed) analytical support for the
juvenile crime bill - doesn't think locking children up with adults is
a good idea. DiIulio wrote in The New York Times that "(m)ost kids who
get into serious trouble with the law need adult guidance. And they
won't find suitable role models in prison. Jailing youth with adult
felons under Spartan conditions will merely produce more street
gladiators." 3
The most disturbing aspect of the new bill is the well-founded
fear that the thousands of young people slated to be placed in adult
prisons and jails are more likely to be raped, assaulted, and commit
suicide. Surveys have documented the higher risk juveniles face when
placed in adult institutions, and people who work with youth know the
all-too-familiar stories: In Ohio, a 15-year-old girl is sexually
assaulted by a deputy jailer after she is placed in an adult jail for a
minor infraction; In Kentucky, 30 minutes after a 15-year-old is put in
a jail cell following an argument with his mother, the youth hangs
himself. 4 In one year, four children being held in
Kentucky jails "for offenses ranging from disorderly conduct, to
non-offenses, like running away from home" committed suicide.
While groups as diverse as the American Jail Association to
American Civil Liberties Association have lobbied to keep kids out of
the reach of adult prisoners, the bills before Congress will result in
substantially more youths being imprisoned with adults. It is timely
and important to revisit the few statistics on how juveniles fare in
adult institutions as Congress considers these dramatic justice system
changes.
Background: Why there are so few statistics?
There
is a dearth of data on rape, suicide and assault rates among the 4,000
juveniles that are sentenced to adult prisons, or the 65,000 children
who pass through the jail system every year.
5 Some states
lump suicide deaths under the category of "unspecified cause"; in
reports, making the problem invisible. Other states and jurisdictions
list rape in with "inmate assaults;" effectively masking the problem.
Academics who study this field warn that any statistics on rape are
"very conservative at best, since discovery and documentation of this
behavior are compromised by the nature of prison conditions, inmate
codes and subculture and staff attitudes."
6 There are also
obvious incentives for prison officials to under-report incidents of
rape and suicide because they are administratively embarrassing to the
prison system, and could be used as evidence for law suits.
7
Even on the less politically charged measure of the number of
"inmate-on-inmate" assaults, it is hard to come up with conclusive
answer to whether inmates are more likely to be attacked in a juvenile
institution or an adult prison. The Corrections Yearbook, an annual
survey of the state of America's prisons compiled by the Criminal
Justice Institute (CJI), suggests that assault rates vary wildly from
state to state. The Yearbook's statistics show: Inmates are seven times
more likely to be referred for medical attention due to an inmate
assault in an adult prison in Connecticut than in one of the state's
juvenile institutions.8 In Oklahoma, inmates are ten times
more likely to be referred, and in Kansas, eleven times more likely to
see a medical professional due to an attack by another inmate.9
In other states, the stark difference seen here between reported
assaults requiring medical attention in juvenile institutions and adult
prisons are reversed.10
There are a number of academic surveys which more clearly
document what happens to youth when they are placed in adult
institutions.
Suicide
The most recent American study on juvenile
suicide in adult institutions and youth facilities was done in 1980.
Funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
(OJJDP), Michael G. Flaherty, a researcher with the Community Research
Forum at the University of Illinois surveyed the number of suicides in
a thousand jails and juvenile detention centers.
11 The
study found that the suicide rate of juveniles in adult jails is 7.7
times higher than that of juvenile detention centers. In stark
contrast, the survey also found that the juvenile institution suicide
rate was lower than that of the general population.
12
A more recent report on prison suicides completed by the British
Prison Reform Trust supports the findings of the Flaherty study.
Analyzing data collected by Her Majesty's Prison Service, the Trust
found that while people aged 15 to 21 made up only 13 percent of the
prison population, they comprised 22 percent of all suicide deaths. 13
These studies confirm what law enforcement officials have been
telling Congress: that children are abused more regularly and driven to
desperation in prison facilities more quickly. Adult prisons and jails
are not equipped to protect young offenders from these risks as well,
they are more likely to fall through the cracks.
Rape
A 1989 study by a team of researchers compared
how youth reported being treated at a number of juvenile training
schools, with those serving time in adult prisons.
14 Five
times as many youth held in adult prisons answered yes to the question
"has anyone attempted to sexually attack or rape you" than those held
in juvenile institutions. Close to ten percent of the youth interviewed
reported a sexual attack, or rape attempt had been levied against them
in the adult prisons, while closer to one -percent reported the same in
the juvenile institution.
15
Another set of studies suggests which system is more likely to
result in an inmate being raped. A group of researchers in 1983 found
that among the residents of six juvenile institutions, 9.1 percent of
youth inmates reported being a "victim" of a sexual attack. 16
But a 1996 study of adult prisoners in Kansas found that 15 percent of
inmates reported to being "forced to have sex against their will."17
Surveys in other countries have found similarly higher rape
rates for young offenders in adult institutions. An Australian survey
shows that of 183 inmates aged 18 to 25 surveyed in a New South Wales
prison, one quarter reported being raped or sexually assaulted, and
more than half said they lived in fear of it. 18 A recent
Canadian survey showed that among 117 inmates surveyed in a federal
prison, 65 incidents involving sexual assault were reported. Among
those, the odds of victimization were eight times higher for a twenty
year old prisoner than the oldest inmates in the system.19
"Compared to non victims," the study reports, "victims tended to be
younger, housed in higher security settings, and in the early part of
their prison term." 20
These statistics seem to fit with what some criminologists call
the "prototype" prison rape victim: someone young, if not the youngest
inmate within a given institutional system. Professor Jeffrey Fagan of
Columbia University's School of Public Health points out that "because
they are physically diminutive, they [juveniles] are subject to
attack.... They will become somebody's 'girlfriend' very, very fast." 21
In an expose on prisons published in The New Republic, a corrections
officer is quoted saying that a young inmate's chance of avoiding rape
were "almost zero.... He'll get raped within the first twenty-four to
forty-eight hours. That's almost standard."22 As the
juveniles sent to adult prison system will be the youngest inmates on
the block, they will likely face the greatest risk of being sexually
attacked.
Assaults and the effects of victimization
The same
1989 study which found such alarming statistics on youth rape in
prisons also found that children placed with adults were twice as
likely to report being "beaten up" by staff: close to one in ten
juveniles report being assaulted by staff.
23 The juveniles in adult prison were also 50 percent more likely to report being attacked with a weapon.
24
Whatever kind of threat you choose, be it rape, assault by
institution staff, or suicide, prison is a more dangerous place for
young offenders. But the frightening character of these statistics
raise a larger issue in terms of how effective the new bill will be
from a crime control perspective. As the authors of the rape study
note, victimization by violence has well-established consequences for
subsequent violence and crime. Victims of rape or sexual assault are
more likely to exhibit aggression towards women and children. "Although
[juvenile] transfer decreases community risk through lengthy
incapacitation of violent youngsters," the authors write, "...the
social costs of imprisoning young offenders in adult facilities may be
paid in later crime and violence upon their release." 25
Conclusion
All of these areas of research represent
crucial information currently being ignored by Congress. The present
research bodes poorly for the large numbers of juveniles who will be
transferred to adult prisons, or the children who will be jailed
alongside adults under proposed legislation.
All 50 states have laws on the books allowing juveniles to be
tried as adults. Over the past 2 years, 42 states have toughened those
laws. Clearly, this is not an area which requires urgent Federal
intervention to spur the states into action.
The Justice Policy Institute recommends that Congress put much
needed resources into a two year state-by-state evaluation of the
changes in America's juvenile justice system. We further recommend that
Congress hold off on sweeping and ill-advised legislation at this time.
During that period, it is our recommendation that funds be specifically
allocated to research:
°The different reoffense rates of similar groups of youth offenders held in juvenile and adult institutions.
°The different rates of sexual and physical victimizations and
suicides of juveniles in adult institutions, as compared to the rate in
juvenile centers.
°A comparison of the different rates of juvenile crime in
states with a large number of youth offenders in adult jails, as
compared to the rates of states with few or no juveniles in adult
institutions.
No legislation that would reverse a century
of juvenile justice reform and put thousands of young people into the
adult prison system should be undertaken until this kind of research is
done.
This research is funded in part by a grant from The California Wellness Foundation
(TCWF). Created in 1992 as a private and independent foundation, TCWF's
mission is to improve the health of the people of California through
proactive support of health promotion and disease prevention programs.
This research was funded by the Juvenile Center on the Crime, Communities and Culture, The Public Welfare Foundation, and the Van Loben Sels Foundation.
Endnotes
1 For example, the scholarly journal
Law and Policy,
Volume 18, No. 1, published in Spring, 1996, lists a half-dozen
articles which show that rates of recidivism are higher for juveniles
who are sent to serve their whole or parts of their sentences in the
adult system
2 Ad placed by The Coalition to Prevent Juvenile Crime, The Washington Times, June 11, 1997
3 DiIulio, John J. Jr., "Crime Where it Starts," The New York Times, July 13, 1996.
4 Soler, Mark I. (June, 1997) Remarks before the Senate Youth
Violence Subcommittee, Senate Judiciary Committee, on the core
requirement's of the Juvenile Justice Act and the "Violent Juvenile and
Repeat Offender Act of 1997"., Washington, DC.
5 Richey, Warren. (June 2, 1997)"Teen Crime Trend Puts Them Behind Adult Bars," The Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 1997.
6 Drumond, Robert W. "The Sexual Assault of Male Inmates in
Incarcerated Settings," International Journal of the Sociology Law
(22), 1992.
7 Donaldson, Stephen. (July, 1995) "Rape of Incarcerated
Americans: A Preliminary Statistical Look." 7th Ed, Stop Prison Rape,
New York, New York.
8 The Corrections Yearbook: Juvenile Corrections, 1995, p. 27; The Corrections Yearbook: Adult Corrections, 1995, p. 26.
9 Ibid.L
10 Ibid.
11 Flaherty, Michael G. "An Assessment of the national incidence
of juvenile suicide in adult jails, lockups, and juvenile detention
centers." The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 1980.
12 Ibid.
13 The Rising Toll of Prison Suicide (April, 1997), The Prison Reform Trust, London, England.
14 Fagan, Jeffrey, Martin Forst and T. Scott Vivona. "Youth In
Prisons and Training Schools: Perceptions and Consequences of the
Treatment-Custody Dichotomy." Juvenile and Family Court, No. 2, 1989.,
p. 10
15Ibid.
16 Bartollas, Clemens and Christopher M. Sieverdes, "The Sexual Victim in a co-educational Juvenile Correctional Institution," The Prison Journal, Vol. 68, No. 1, 1983.
17 Struckman-Johnson, Cindy and David Struckman Johnson. "Sexual
Coercion Reported by Men and Women."The Journal of Sex Research, Vol.
33, No. 1, 1996.
18 Heilpern, David. "Sexual Assault of New South Wales Prisons, in Current Issues in Criminal Justice, Vol. 6, No 3, 1995.
19 Cooley, Dennis, "Criminal Victimization in male federal prisons," The Canadian Journal of Criminology, October 1993.
20 Ibid.
21 "Kids Behind Bars," Investigative Reports, A & E Network, June 14, 1997.
22 Lerner, S. (October 15, 1984) "The Rule of the Cruel." The New Republic
23 Fagan, et al.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
Suggested citation format for this report: Schiraldi, Vincent and Jason Zeidenberg. (1997)
The Risks Juveniles Face When They Are Incarcerated With Adults. Washington DC: The Justice Policy Institute.