Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Report on Sexual Victimization in Prisons, Jails, and Juvenile Correctional Facilities (2016)

"This Report presents the findings of the Review Panel on Prison Rape (Panel), along with its recommendations, that are the result of its 2014 hearings in Washington, District of Columbia, based on two national surveys of correctional facilities by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS): Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 2011-12 (May 2013) and Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2012 (June 2013). Under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA), the Panel is to hold annual public hearings, based on the data that BJS has collected from correctional facilities in three broad categories: (1) federal and state prisons, (2) jails, and (3) juvenile correctional facilities. In each of these three categories, the Panel is to solicit testimony on the operations of two correctional institutions with a low incidence of sexual victimization and three correctional institutions with a high incidence of sexual victimization. The purpose of the hearings is to identify the common characteristics of (1) sexual predators, (2) victims, (3) correctional institutions and systems with a low incidence of sexual victimization, and (4) correctional institutions and systems with a high incidence of sexual victimization."