Macon’s youth detention center among worst in US for ‘coerced sexual activity,’ survey says

A new study shows one Georgia juvenile detention center has some of the highest rates of what the study calls “coerced sexual activity” among children in custody of any such facility in the country.

The findings are a part of the federal Department of Justice National Survey of Youth In Custody. That survey is conducted in accordance with federal Prison Rape Prevention Act passed in 2003.

The survey was administered to young people in 327 detention facilities nationwide in 2018. On average, 7.1% of children surveyed reported experiencing being coerced into some kind of sexual activity, either by peers or by detention facility staff. That’s a drop of just under 2.5 percentage points since the last survey.