"An advocacy group said Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's internal watchdog fielded more than 1,000 complaints of sexual assault or sexual abuse from people in custody in a little more than two years.
... The numbers obtained by the group don't provide details on individual cases, including how many alleged perpetrators were detainees or staff, and it doesn't provide full accounting of how the complaints were addressed. Still, they suggest complaints are common.
Homeland Security inspector general's office disclosed that it received 1,016 complaints from detainees reporting sexual abuse or assault from May 2014 to July 2016. More than 90 percent involved Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within Homeland Security that has more than 30,000 beds at detention facilities nationwide."
Read the full report here.
For more information on abuse in detention facilities, see the Sexual violence during the process of immigration section of our Immigrant Women and Sexual Violence special collection.
