Sexual Violence in Prison

822 Words2 Pages

It is very difficult to prevent sexual violence outside the prison and jail area, nevertheless, imagine the issue inside the prison and jail area. There are people who will think the inmates deserve it and that they should not be helped since they are prisoners. Sexual violence has been going on for centuries and it is not a new issue. It is not until the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 that requires the Bureau of Justice Statistics to develop new national data collections on the incidence and prevalence of sexual violence within correctional facilities. The BJS completed the third annual national survey of administrative records in adult correctional facilities between January 1 and June 30, 2007 that provides an understanding of what officials know, based on the number of reported allegations, and the outcomes of follow-up investigations. The 2006 results were compared with those from 2004 and 2005 to assess trends in sexual violence for the first time since the Act was passed.

In 2004 BJS developed uniform definition of sexual violence. Incidents on inmate-on-inmate sexual violence were classified as either nonconsensual sexual acts or abusive sexual contacts. Incidents involving staff were separated into staff sexual misconduct or staff sexual harassment. In 2006, it was found that about 36% of the reported allegations of sexual violence involved staff sexual misconduct, 34%, inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts, 17%, staff sexual harassment, and 13%, inmate-on-inmate abusive sexual contacts. It was found that these percentages were nearly unchanged from those reported in 2005. Upon investigation, most allegations were unsubstantiated or unfounded. Sadly, the most common outcome of investigations is that there is no...

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...olation of privacy. Also, the factor of light can become a big issue as well. It would make more sense to have brighter lights and having more lights in dim areas such as hallways. Funds should also be available to purchase investigative equipment on serology and train medical staff on how to handle new equipment. If computers are not updated or to the most advance technology, then there should be funding to have inmate classification systems for making housing decisions and by identifying potential victims and perpetrators of sexual violence.

Other than technology funds, there should be funds founded to create programs to deal with post-traumatic stress related for both inmate and staff victims. Of course, the first step is to encourage victims to report the incident. It is important to allow the victims to feel that if they report it, they will get help right away.

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