U.S. Department of Justice Releases Former Prisoner Report on Sexual Victimization

by Matt Clarke

On May 12, 2012, the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the U.S. Department of Justice released a report on a survey of former state prisoners about sexual victimization in jails and prisons. The first ever National Former Prisoner Survey was conducted between January and October 2008 and is intended, in conjunction with the National Inmate Survey, and the National Survey of Youth in Custody and Survey of Sexual Violence, to provide the statistical information of prison rape required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

The survey was taken of 18,526 former state prisoners under active supervision at 317 randomly-selected parole offices in 40 states. They are representative of the 510,800 persons under active parole supervision at the time of the survey. Excluded from the survey were parole offices supervising less than 40 parolees in remote areas and specialty offices such as sex offender supervision or treatment facilities. Parolees who were in community treatment or halfway houses or had been re-incarcerated or absconded were also excluded.

9.6% of former state prisoners reported at least one incident of sexual victimization during the most recent period of incarceration. 1.8% reported it happened in a jail, while, for 7.5%, it occurred in a state prison and 0.1% reported it happened in a post-release community treatment facility. A previous survey of state prisoners had shown a lower sexual victimization rate of 4.8%, but those prisoners averaged 7.9 months of incarceration while the former state prisoners had a longer exposure averaging 39.4 months.

5.4% reported prisoner-on-prisoner sexual victimization (PPSV). 3.7% said they had been forced or pressured to have nonconsensual sex with another prisoner.

5.3% reported at least one incident of staff sexual misconduct (SSM). 1.2% said that they had unwilling sex or sexual contact with staff while 4.6% reported "willing" sex or sexual contact.

Around a quarter of the prisoners reporting prisoner-on-prisoner sexual violence had been held down or restrained and a quarter had been physically harmed or injured.

A third of the SSM victims said they had been talked into it while about half said they had been offered special privileges or favors in exchange for sex or sexual contact. About 2% of unwilling SSM victims reported being physically injured by staff compared to 16% of "willing" SSM victims.

The rate of PPSV was three times higher for females (13.7%) than males (4.2%). The rate of "willing" SSM was higher among males (4.8%) than females (2.6%), but the rate of unwilling SSM was higher among females (2.5%) than males (1.1%).

Among male prisoners, the rate of PPSV was much higher among homosexuals (39%) and bisexuals (34%) than among heterosexuals (3.5%). Among female prisoners, the rate of PPSV was lower among heterosexuals (13%) than bisexuals (18%), but about the same as homosexuals (13%). However, female homosexual and bisexual prisoners reported a much higher rate of SSM (8%) than female heterosexuals (4%).

Among male prisoners, the rate of PPSV was higher among multi-racial prisoners (9.5%) than among non-Hispanic whites (5.9%) or non-Hispanic blacks (2.9%). The rate of SSM among male prisoners was higher among multi-racial prisoners (11.3%) than among non-Hispanic blacks (6.5%), non-Hispanic whites (4.5%) or Hispanics (4.0%).

The rate of SSM was lower for older prisoners. Males 20 to 24 at admission to prison had a higher rate (7.9%) than males 25 to 34 (5.2%), 35 to 44 (3.5%) or over 44 (2.0%). Likewise females 20 to 24 (6.7%) had a higher rate than those 35 to 44 (3.1%) or over 44 (1.6%). The highest rates were among males (18.6%) and females (14.9%) under 18 when admitted to prison.

Some factors seemed to have no influence on the rates of sexual victimization. These included the marital status of the victim, the size, age, or crowding of the prison, the staff-to-prisoner ratio and the gender composition of the staff.

For both genders, the rate of sexual victimization was highest in prisons under court orders or consent decrees or having reported a major disturbance within the previous 12 months. The rates also increased with increasing security levels – being lowest among community corrections and work-release centers, low in minimum security prisons and diagnostic and reception centers but increasing in medium security prisons and being higher still in maximum security prisons.

The majority of victims of PPSV (72%) and unwilling SSM (79%) reported feeling shame or humiliation after they were released from prison. 56% of the PPSV victims and 72% of SSM victims reported feeling guilty. 54% of the SSM victims reported finding it hard to feel close to friends and family because of the sexual victimization.

Among the 90% of former state prisoners who had been tested for HIV, a significantly higher percentage of those who had suffered SSM (4.6%) or PPSV (6.5%) were HIV-positive compared to those who were not sexually victimized (2.6%). However, the sexual victimization did not have a significant impact on the rate of post-release employment (64%) or housing (92% in house, apartment, trailer or mobile home). It did slightly increase the chances that the person was living alone (18% compared to 14%).

Source: Sexual Victimization Reported by Former State Prisoners, 2008, Report No. NCJ 237363 available free online at www.ojp.usdoj.gov

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