BJS PREA Publications

"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.

"The report summarizes BJS's efforts during 2014 and the first 5 months of 2015, which included analyzing administrative records of sexual victimization in adult correctional facilities based on the Survey of Sexual Violence (SSV), implementing changes to the SSV and completing data collection, and, for the first time, providing estimates of the rates of sexual victimization among transgender inmates" ... Some of the highlights from this profile include: administrators of adult correctional facilities reported 8,763 allegations of sexual victimization in 2011, a statistically significant increase over the 8,404 allegations reported in 2010 and 7,855 in 2009; 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%); about 52% of substantiated incidents of sexual victimization in 2011 involved only inmates, while 48% of substantiated incidents involved staff with inmates; 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. In comparison, males comprised 91% of adjudicated youth in the survey, and female staff accounted for 44% of staff in the sampled facilities; and in 2011-12, an estimated 4.0% of state and federal prison inmates and 3.2% of jail inmates reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another inmate or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission to the facility, if less than 12 months.