Sexual Abuse Leads Many Girls to Prison According to a New Study

Fay “Honey” Knopp was a prison reform advocate in the 1960s and 1970s. When she learned there was a strong correlation between being a victim of sexual abuse and being incarcerated, she turned her attentions toward sexual abuse prevention, work that eventually led to the establishment of The Safer Society Foundation.

A recently released study by the Human Rights Project for Girls, the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, and the Ms. Foundation for Women, confirms that this correlation continues to exist among adolescent girls:

…many girls who experience sexual abuse are routed into the juvenile justice system because of their victimization. Indeed, sexual abuse is one of the primary predictors of girls’ entry into the juvenile justice system.4 A particularly glaring example is when girls who are victims of sex trafficking are arrested on prostitution charges — punished as perpetrators rather than served and supported as victims and survivors.

MSNBC has produced a news story about this study, which you can find here.

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