Guards may be responsible for half of sexual assaults in prison
according to a new Justice Dept. study, as reported by Joaquin Sapien at Pro Publica. (posted with permission):
A new Justice Department study [1] shows that allegations of sex abuse in the nation’s prisons and jails are increasing — with correctional officers responsible for half of it — but prosecution is still extremely rare.
The report, released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, takes data collected by correctional administrators representing all of the nation’s federal and state prisons as well as many county jails. It shows that administrators logged more than 8,000 reports of abuse to their overseers each year between 2009 and 2011, up 11 percent from the department’s previous report [2], which covered 2007 and 2008.
It’s not clear whether the increase is the result of better reporting or represents an actual rise in the number of incidents.
http://www.propublica.org/article/guards-may-be-responsible-for-half-of-prison-sexual-assaults
The actual study is here:
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4881
According to the study, 51% of the reported instances of abuse were of prisoners being abused by other prisoners, 49% by staff.
Among the more disturbing findings of the study: even when a prisoner reports, and that report is believed, staff perpetrators are likely to be dismissed without a formal charge, thus enabling them to seek work at another facility. But prisoners overall are unlikely to report, since a) they generally aren't believed and b) they might well be subject to retaliation from perpetrators and their friends/enablers.
This reminds me of the Joanne Little case of many years back.
Just one more grotesque feature of our rape culture.
