Report cites lack of staffing, security cameras for incidents of abuse in state youth prisons by
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Youths in Illinois juvenile prisons suffered higher rates of sexual assault than those in other states because of the lack of adequate staffing and state-of-the-art security cameras and a failure to spot “red flag” behavior, a report released Wednesday found.
State Department of Juvenile Justice Director Arthur Bishop said the agency is working to implement reforms proposed in the report, which was commissioned after a federal report issued in June found that as many as 1 in 5 Illinois juvenile inmates had been victimized sexually by a staff member or other inmate. The statewide average at the eight facilities, two of which were closed earlier this year, was more than 15 percent, the highest rate in the federal survey.