Physical Victimization of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System: The Roles of Maltreatment and Sexual and Gender Minority Statuses

The victimization of youth incarcerated in juvenile justice (JJ) facilities by institutional staff and peers is a salient issue within the JJ system, posing serious risk to the safety and wellbeing of youth in custody. Physical victimization in particular has remained largely understudied, despite being linked to myriad adverse social and emotional outcomes. Certain factors, such as youths’ history of maltreatment, may increase risk of physical victimization during incarceration. Given that sexual minority (SM) and gender minority (GM) youth are disproportionately impacted by childhood maltreatment and have a heightened likelihood of coming into contact with the JJ system, the risk of victimization among SM and GM youth during incarceration warrants further study. Using self-report data gathered as part of the National Survey Youth in Custody, the current study expands the existing body of literature by investigating the roles of distinct maltreatment types and SM and GM statuses as risk factors for the physical victimization of JJ youth by institutional peers and staff. The study utilized a hierarchical binary logistic regression analysis conducted via generalized linear modeling to parse out the effects of SM and GM statuses as a risk factor above and beyond youth maltreatment history, and to examine the additive risk posed by the intersection of maltreatment history and SM and GM statuses. Findings indicated that facility physical victimization by peers was significantly associated with older age of youth, identifying as Black or Hispanic, prior sexual abuse, and the interaction between SM status and prior physical abuse. Facility physical victimization by staff was significantly associated with identifying as Black and prior physical abuse. These findings suggest that other demographic factors (e.g., age, race and ethnicity) may have stronger associations with facility victimization than SM and GM statuses, and underscore the role of prior trauma exposure in predicting facility victimization. The results of this study have the potential to inform targeted and trauma-informed intervention strategies aimed at the prevention of physical victimization of youth in JJ facilities.