An Empirical Examination of Sexual Assault (original) (raw)
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The sexual assault of male victims in incarcerated settings.
International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 1992
Annotation This article examines the incidence of inmate sexual assault in U.S. prisons, victim trauma, and strategies of prevention and intervention. Abstract Although there are no precise, objective data on the incidence of sexual assault in U.S. prisons, anecdotal and suggestive data indicate that it is a serious problem of inmate security and safety. The inmate victims of such assault experience humiliation, degradation, and possible re-victimization. Sexual assaults contribute to violence in prison and diminish the chances of inmate rehabilitation. Victims of sexual assault in prison often return to the community embittered and enraged, thus prone to the commission of more criminal offenses. To address this problem, local/State/Federal correctional officials should scientifically determine the incidence of prison sexual violence and establish a crisis intervention protocol for inmate victims in accordance with the Cotton and Groth (1984) model. Preventive and intervention steps should include relevant training and attitudinal development for correctional staff, long-term strategies for inmate victims, mandated reporting of any incident of sexual assault, and a more efficient response in the prosecution of such offenses. 87 references. Dumond, R.W. (1992). The sexual assault of male inmates in incarcerated settings. International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 20 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1992) Pages: 135-157. NCJ139657
Understanding Sexual Victimization Inside Prisons: Factors That Predict Risk
Criminology & Public Policy, 2007
Broad consensus exists across the country and political spectrum that sexual victimization occurs inside prisons and that it should be prevented in accordance with basic human rights, especially inside institutions that are funded and operated by government. The challenging task is to confirm the speculation by measuring reliably the extent to which sexual victimization occurs inside prison and then to understand its causal structure in an effort to prevent it. This article addresses this challenge first by summarizing what is known about the prevalence of sexual victimization in the prisons of America and then by exploring attributes of the inmate or facility that elevate the likelihood of being sexually victimized while inside prison. This descriptive evidence provides the roadmap for more contextual research that is needed to explore the causal mechanism underlying sexual victimization. The predictive part of this article uses a data set on the self-reported victimization experiences of approximately 8,000 inmates residing in twelve male adult prisons, one sex offender treatment prison for males, and one female adult prison, all located in a single state.
Men’s Vulnerability to Prisoner-on-Prisoner Sexual Violence: A State Correctional System Case Study
The one-state case study described in this article assesses imprisoned men's vulnerability to sexual assault by an inmate before policies were implemented to reduce sexual violence. The cases studied were substantiated in an internal hearing procedure. On average, victims were more recently incarcerated, younger, smaller, and less aggressive than their perpetrators, but many victim-perpetrator pairs deviated from this profile. The strongest predictor of victimization was a history of childhood sexual victimization. Other predictors were race, youth, build, education, and experience with incarceration.
Sexual Violence Among Male Inmates
Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 2018
Inmate misconduct has been a widely studied topic for many decades. General studies of misconduct have found that there are certain factors that contribute to misconduct, including age, gender, sentence length, and facility type. Few studies, however, have examined the factors predicting sexual offenses in a prison conduct. Although many studies of victims of sexual offenses in prison have been conducted, there is a lack of studies examining the perpetrators of prison sexual violence. The current study attempted to expand this body of literature by examining the correlates of sexual misconduct among a sample of male inmates incarcerated in the state of North Carolina during 2010. Deprivation and importation theories of inmate behavior were used to guide the analysis, and measures of deprivation and importation factors were both included in the analytical models. Findings indicate that Black, nonmarried, younger inmates, who had more previous incarcerations and had been incarcerated ...
Sexual Violence Inside Prisons: Rates of Victimization
Journal of Urban Health, 2006
People in prison are exposed to and experience sexual violence inside prisons, further exposing them to communicable diseases and trauma. The consequences of sexual violence follow the individual into the community upon release. This paper estimates the prevalence of sexual victimization within a state prison system. A total of 6,964 men and 564 women participated in a survey administered using audio-CASI. Weighted estimates of prevalence were constructed by gender and facility size. Rates of sexual victimization varied significantly by gender, age, perpetrator, question wording, and facility. Rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization in the previous 6 months were highest for female inmates (212 per 1,000), more than four times higher than male rates (43 per 1,000). Abusive sexual conduct was more likely between inmates and between staff and inmates than nonconsensual sexual acts. Sexual violence inside prison is an urgent public health issue needing targeted interventions to prevent and ameliorate its health and social consequences, which spatially concentrate in poor inner-city areas where these individuals ultimately return.
Inmate Sexual Assault: The Plague That Persists
The Prison Journal, 2000
As the population of incarcerated inmates continues to swell to record proportions in the United States, the problem of inmate sexual assault continues to occur. Although no one is immune from such attacks, there are known characteristics that place inmates at increased risk of victimization. The trauma of inmate sexual assault is devastating and pervasive, with complex medical, physical, psychological, and social consequences that must be carefully managed in an interdisciplinary manner. In addition, the recognition that correctional staff of all disciplines may also victimize inmates complicates the management of this process. Mental health staff members are in a key role to shape and contribute to staff training efforts, administrative policies and procedures, and sound intervention protocols that are necessary to respond to individual inmate victims and to ensure safety and security within correctional institutions.
Document Title: The Culture of Prison Sexual Violence
2006
cultural themes • If a man believes he can be raped he’s already been raped. • A man cannot be raped unless he wants to be. • Men and women inmates may choose to remain outside the homosexual scene. This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
2006
At the dawn of the twenty-first century, a wound that had been festering in American corrections finally received examination and treatment. For decades, there had been reports of the "[c]ruel and [u]sual" [FN1] punishment of prisoner rape which had broken forth in the national media and in scholarly journals, raising the alarm about what some called "America's most ignored crime problem." [FN2] In 1996, Struckman-Johnson, Struckman-Johnson, Rucker, Bumby and Donaldson reported that twenty-two percent of Nebraska's male prisoners were the victims of sexual pressuring, attempted sexual assault or completed rapes [FN3] and that one in ten prisoners were victims of a completed rape. [FN4] Human Rights Watch decried the sexual abuse of women in state prisons in the United States. [FN5] The National Institute of Corrections also initiated a training program to address staff sexual misconduct that same year. [FN6] Ironically, *143 however, until 1999 "sexual abuse of prisoners by correctional officials was not even a criminal offense in 14 states." [FN7]
Sexual Victimization Reported by Former State Prisoners, 2008
PsycEXTRA Dataset
Incidents of sexual victimization 8 Type of coercion and physical injury 12 Circumstances surrounding victimization 14 Variations by sex of former inmates 15 Variations by other individual-level characteristics 16 Variations by selected facility-level characteristics 20 Prison placements and individual-level risk factors 25 Reporting of sexual victimization 30 Post-release responses to victimization 32 HIV testing and results 33 Methodology 35 Appendix A 40 Appendix B 41 Appendix C 43 Appendix D 44 Appendix E 45 Highlights Prevalence of sexual victimization An estimated 9 6% of former state prisoners reported one or more incidents of sexual victimization during the most recent period of incarceration in jail, prison, and postrelease community-treatment facility Among all former state prisoners, 1 8% reported experiencing one or more incidents while in a local jail, 7 5% while in a state prison, and 0 1% while in a postrelease community-treatment facility List of appendix tables Appendix table 1. Standard errors for table 4: Type of coercion and physical injury of former state prisoners who reported sexual victimization, by type of incident 46 Appendix table 2. Standard errors for table 5: Circumstances surrounding sexual victimization of former state prisoners, by type of incident 47 Appendix table 3. Wald-F statistics for former prisoner characteristics in the final multivariate logistic regression models of sexual victimization, by type of incident 48 Appendix table 4. Wald-F statistics for former state prisoner and facility characteristics in the final multivariate logistic regression models of sexual victimization among male and female placements, by type of incident 49 Appendix table 5. Standard errors for table 17: Reporting of sexual victimization, by type of incident and persons to whom the incident was reported 50 Appendix table 6. Standard errors for table 19: Facility responses to the reporting of sexual victimization to staff, by type of incident 50 Appendix table 7. Standard errors for table 20: Post-release responses of victims to sexual victimization, by type of incident Highlights (continued))
Possible solutions for preventing inmate sexual Assault: Examining wardens’ beliefs
American Journal of Criminal Justice, 2002
Inmate sexual assault has long been a problem within the American correctional system. Prison sex researchers have prescribed various remedies and solutions f~)r dealing with this issue. However, few of these studies have examined wardens" beliefs regarding possible remedies for inmate sexual assault. Using data collected from 226 wardens in 2001, this study examines the beliefs that wardens hold concerning the effectiveness of institutional policies and procedures, staff training, and increased supervision by staff on sexual assault among inmates. On average, wardens feel these possible solutions would reduce inmate sexual coercion. Multiple regression analyses reveal that race, education, percentage of inmates sexually assaulted and known by the warden, and percentage of inmates having consensual sex are statistically significant variables associated with these remedies.