Report Finds 4.5 Percent of Inmates Suffer Sexual Victimization

WASHINGTON — An estimated 60,500 state and federal inmates, or 4.5 percent of the total inmate population, reported sexual victimization during 2007, according to a Justice Department survey.

Approximately 2 percent of inmates reported incidents involving other inmates, while almost 3 percent of inmates reported incidents involving staff members, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Inmates reported an estimated 56 incidents of nonconsensual inmate-on-inmate incidents per 1,000 inmates. The report estimated 85 nonconsensual incidents with staff per 1,000 inmates.
An estimated 0.8 percent of inmates reported being injured — stab wounds, broken bones, vaginal/anal tearing, and less serious injuries, such as bruises — as a result of sexual victimization, according to the report.

The survey of inmates at 146 state and federal prisons identified 10 facilities with victimization rates ranging from 9.3 percent to 15.7 percent, while six facilities had no reports of sexual victimization.

Of the 10 state and federal prisons with the highest rates of sexual victimization, three facilities had prevalence rates of more than 10 percent for incidents involving staff, according to the report.

Administrative surveys conducted during 2006 found that approximately 25 percent of allegations brought to the attention of correctional authorities were determined to be false, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Mandated by the Prison Rape Elimination Act, the voluntary survey sampled 23,398 inmates at state and federal prisons throughout the United States.