More than a decade ago, rampant sexual abuse inside Texas’ youth lockups forced the state to reform its scandal-plagued juvenile justice system. Children who committed misdemeanors were no longer sent to state lockups with a documented history of failing to keep them safe. That and other changes radically reduced the number of juveniles in the custody of the state, which over the past decade has shuttered 10 state-run youth lockups.
However, the 428 children currently confined at three of Texas’ five remaining juvenile prisons, which continue to house youth who have committed serious or violent offenses, face some of the highest rates of sexual abuse in the country, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The new analysis released by the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) this week estimates that about 7 percent of youth in juvenile lockups nationwide reported sexual victimization in 2018. That’s down from 9.5 percent in 2012, the last time the bureau studied the issue. Yet at the Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex in Brownwood, 14 percent of children reported being coerced or forced into sexual activity by staff or other youth. The rate was even higher at the Gainesville State School and Waco’s McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility, where one in six youth detained reported abuse.
