BJS Data Collection Profile

Activities of the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) related to prison rape during the 2012 calendar year are documented.

"During 2013 and the first 4 months of 2014, BJS issued four reports: In May 2013, BJS published estimates of sexual victimization based on reports by inmates in adult prisons and jails; in June 2013, BJS published estimates of sexual victimization based on reports of youth held in juvenile facilities; and in January 2014, BJS issued two reports analyzing administrative records of sexual victimization in adult correctional facilities based on the Survey of Sexual Violence (SSV). In addition, BJS began further analysis of the past inmate self-report surveys to provide a fuller understanding of facility- and individual-level predictors of sexual victimization." Some of the highlights from these reports are: the number of allegations has risen since 2005, largely due to increases in prisons, where allegations increased from 4,791 allegations to 6,660 in 2011 (up 39%); 52% of substantiated incidents of sexual victimization in 2011 involved only inmates, while 48% of substantiated incidents involved staff with inmates; and among the estimated 1,390 youth who reported victimization by staff, 89.1% were males reporting sexual activity with female staff, and 3.0% were males reporting sexual activity with both male and female staff.