Persuasive Essay On Prison Rape

Prison Rape

This is my position that covers the highlights of the report Prison Rape: A Critical

Review of the Literature, which analyzes obstacles and problems that must be overcome

to effectively measure sexual assault at the facility level. Each bold heading in this

summary refers to the same bold heading contained in the larger report.

Federal Legislation. The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 calls for research and

policy changes to minimize sexual victimization of incarcerated juveniles and adults. The Act

also calls for a zero tolerance policy; national standards for the detection, prevention, reduction,

and punishment of prison rape; collection of data on incidence; and development of a system to
hold prison officials accountable. Also, the Bureau of Justice Statistics is to design a

methodology to assess the prevalence of prison sexual assault and monitor adult prisons, jails,

and juvenile facilities. In the findings section of the public law, there is a claim from unnamed

experts that a conservative estimate of victimization suggests that 13 percent of inmates in the

United States have been sexually assaulted.

Defining Sexual Victimization – Prevalence and Incidence. Research should distinguish

various levels of sexual victimization from completed rapes to other forms of sexual coercion.

Any measurement process will have to distinguish between the prevalence and incidence of the

events. Prevalence refers to the number of people in a given population who have ever had a

sexual assault experience. Incidence refers to the number of new cases. This distinction is

important, because prevalence can be high, but the number of new cases is low due to some kind

of intervention or enforcement of policy. Aside from one study conducted by the Bureau of

Justice Statistics (BJS) in 1997, all other studies conducted in the United States included fewer

than 50 prisons in total. In 2000, BJS reported there were 1,668 federal and state prisons.

There has also been one study of sexual victimization in a jail system. In 1999, the

Bureau of Justice Statistics reported there were 3,365 jails in the United States. Studies Involving

Primarily Men, or Men and Women. Studies by Tewksbury, and Castle (2003), Carroll (1977),

Chonco (1989), Moss, Hosford, and Statistics (1997) reported on primarily male samples, or a

combination of female and male samples. The Butler and Milner and Butler et al., studies were

conducted as part of a larger health assessment in the prison system in New South Wales,

Australia. Details of each of these studies are covered in the full report. U.S. National Probability

Sample of Rape during Incarceration. The only attempt at a U.S. national probability sample of

adults in state and federal prisons was conducted by BJS in 1997. In that study, 0.45 percent of

men and 0.35 percent of women prisoners reported they had experienced an attempted or

completed rape during a previous incarceration.

U.S. National Probability Sample of Forced Sexual Activity among Youth in Juvenile

Facilities. There has also been a national probability sample of youth living in juvenile facilities

because they are accused or convicted of a crime. The Survey of Youth in Residential Placement

(SYRP) was sponsored by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Over

7,000 juveniles participated (75 percent response rate) and detailed questions about forced sex

were asked. The results will be released soon. Aside from the New South Wales and BJS

studies, most other research papers report survey return rates of 50 percent or less. Many

response rates are 25 percent or lower. The prevalence estimates in this research less typically

referring to the entire period of incarceration. When forms of sexual pressure are included, these

estimates increase to an upper limit of about 21 percent or less except for a couple of prisons.

National and system probability samples which are designed to give an estimate of victimization

for the entire jurisdiction, reported sexual victimization rates of 2 percent or less. There are few

incident studies, and these have little, or no, information on how to construct an appropriate

denominator to get a percentage or rate.
A "back of the envelope" estimate places this at no more

than 2 percent in a given year, based primarily on the one jail system study conducted in the

1960's and as low as 0.69 percent based on one prison study. Women's victimization

percentages appear to be lower than men's.

These studies use different methods to establish the level of victimization

(questionnaires,interviews, informants, administrative records); they use different questions, and

they use different time frames. Definitions vary widely from rape to sexual pressure. Some of

these estimates rely on self-reported victimizations, while others are based on the perceptions of

inmates and staff on the overall level of victimization in the prison. These latter estimates always

appear higher than self reports, and it is unclear what these latter estimates mean since there is no

presumption that inmates or staff actually witness all of the sexual assaults they claim are

occurring. Most studies fail to report how long the sexual assault victim has been in prison

making it difficult to compare prisons across jurisdictions, due to the likelihood of different

exposure
periods. In an effort to get a summary estimate of the level of sexual victimization, a meta-

analysis was conducted to provide a calculation of an average estimate over all of the studies,

even though any single study may not meet conventional levels of statistical significance. Results

of the meta-analysis indicates an average prison lifetime sexual assault prevalence of 1.91

percent. This means that 1.91 percent of inmates have experienced a sexual victimization over a

lifetime of incarceration. This estimate is based primarily on studies which report completed

victimizations, although it incorporates some studies which also include serious attempts of

sexual assault and one study that includes sexual pressure.

Social Desirability of Responses and the Nature of Sensitive Questions. Prison sexual

assault surveys are similar to surveys conducted in the community eliciting information on other

sensitive behaviors. Survey participants tend to underreport behaviors that are perceived to be

against society's norms (socially undesirable), that invade privacy, and that may be disclosed to

third parties despite precautions by researchers to protect confidentiality. The legislation

recognizes that to report the best and worst prisons, jails, and juvenile facilities with respect to

their ranking on sexual victimization, there will have to be some adjustment in the rankings to

"level the playing field." For example, it is unfair to compare prisons that contain different

inmate security compositions. Adjusting the victimization rates to make prisons appear

equivalent is a technically difficult problem. Since there are consequences to low rankings, the

adjustments and resulting rankings will also be controversial.

Summary. The task framed by the Prison Elimination Act of 2003 presents problems of

estimation, validity, and bias. The correctional setting amplifies the problems encountered when

researchers measure sensitive and stigmatized behaviors in the community. Most of the literature

has been concerned with adult prisons. While there are difficulties encountered in prisons, there

will be additional problems in jails and juvenile facilities. Jails have high turnover rates. To get

compliance from adolescents, in most jurisdictions you need the consent of their parents. While

the task is a formidable one; it is worth the effort, even if prison rape is a relatively rare event.

The data can be used to raise or allay concerns depending on the results of the jurisdiction. The

survey results can be used to train staff and inmates. The data may lead to better classification

of victims and assailants, which will help to reduce the level of sexual assault. The American

Correctional Association has already promulgated new standards that address prevention,

detection, and records collection associated with sexual assault. Because there is no validity

check on the outcomes, there will probably always be some controversy associated with the

results of a facility-based estimate. The adjustments to the estimates required by the public

law will probably amplify that controversy. Furthermore, there are critics of correctional

administration and some researchers who argue that prison sex is part of a subculture of sexuality

Most analysts doing work in this domain do not commonly understand that. They argue that to

fully understand the level of sexual victimization, one must first understand the language and sub

cultural definitions used by the confined. The data may also lead to a more objective

understanding of the actual level of prison sexual victimization that will either support or

invalidate the assumptions inherent in the Rape Elimination Act that make it appear prison rape

is endemic in American correctional institutions. However, since there is no independent

assessment of the validity of the self-reported incidents, there may well be dissatisfaction with

the results of a national probability assessment regardless of the outcome. The opinions

expressed in this paper are those of the authors' and should not be construed as the opinions or

the policy of the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Justice Programs, or the U. S.

Department of Justice.