According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' first-ever report on sexual assault and rape in U.S. prisons, in 2004 there were nearly 2,100 confirmed incidents of sexual violence in adult state and federal prisons, and local jails.
It’s important to note that all of these statistics refer to substantiated claims only. More than 8,200 allegations of sex violence were reported, but only one-third were confirmed by corrections officials; 15 percent are still being investigated.
Now for the numbers:
Women, who are less than 10 percent of the prison population, made up almost half of ALL victims of abusive sexual contact in state prisons. (Outside prison walls, women are 94 percent of victims of reported sexual violence.)
Men, who make up 93.1 percent of the total prison population, comprised 90 percent of the victims and the perpetrators of inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sex acts.
In state prisons, 69 percent of the victims of staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct were male, while 67 percent of the perpetrators were female. In staff-on-inmate incidents in local jails, 70 percent of the victims were female and 65 percent of the perpetrators were male.
Most of the reporting on the new statistics has failed to emphasize that there are way more incarcerated men than women, which causes the numbers look the way they do. Sexual assault, no matter what the genders of the parties involved, should be taken seriously. But I can see some groups twisting these data to say that men are at a greater risk for sexual assault behind bars, or that women shouldn't be working as prison guards. Neither of which is true.
Finally, the report contained no mention of inmate-on-staff incidents, do account for a percentage of incidents of sexual violence behind bars. The average number of inmate-on-staff assaults has risen 50 percent since 1991.
For more info, see Stop Prisoner Rape and Human Rights Watch.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Gender & the new prison rape statistics.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/2470
I am really shocked that this is the first ever report on sexual assault and abuse in prison. I honestly thought that a study like this would have been performed long ago. The fact that it hadn’t is really troubling to me and I’m sure to others who strenuously advocate for prison reform.
That being said, I was stunned when I read this:
“Rates of substantiated incidents were highest in state-operated juvenile facilities (5.2 substantiated incidents per 1,000 youths) as well as in local and private juvenile facilities (5.0 per 1,000 youth). These rates were nearly 10 times higher than those reported in state prisons (0.5 per 1,000 inmates) and 8 times those in local jails (0.6 per 1,000).”
Children and teens are sent to juvenile facilities with the idea that when they leave, they will be able to re-enter society and re-build their lives. This is why many juvenile records are sealed. Now I’m reading that they are far more likely to be sexually assaulted in juvie then in adult prisons. Being raped alters you and it can create permanent emotional scars. I don’t even know what to say except that it is extremely frustrating to see a system which is supposedly designed to “rehabilitate” children and re-integrate them into society fail so badly. And to know that so many people just don’t care and may even think that these children deserve it.
god, this is depressing.
From the man it is quite possible to consider harassment of sexual affinity as the violence beginning and consequently it is categorically inadmissible in ethical sense.