Sexual violence inside prisons: rates of victimization.

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Abstract

People in prison are exposed to and experience sexual violence inside prisons, further exposing them to communicable diseases and trauma. The consequences of sexual violence follow the individual into the community upon release. This paper estimates the prevalence of sexual victimization within a state prison system. A total of 6,964 men and 564 women participated in a survey administered using audio-CASI. Weighted estimates of prevalence were constructed by gender and facility size. Rates of sexual victimization varied significantly by gender, age, perpetrator, question wording, and facility. Rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization in the previous 6 months were highest for female inmates (212 per 1,000), more than four times higher than male rates (43 per 1,000). Abusive sexual conduct was more likely between inmates and between staff and inmates than nonconsensual sexual acts. Sexual violence inside prison is an urgent public health issue needing targeted interventions to prevent and ameliorate its health and social consequences, which spatially concentrate in poor inner-city areas where these individuals ultimately return.

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Most cited references 22

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Adolescent sexual behavior, drug use, and violence: increased reporting with computer survey technology.

C Turner, L. Ku, S M Rogers … (1998)

Surveys of risk behaviors have been hobbled by their reliance on respondents to report accurately about engaging in behaviors that are highly sensitive and may be illegal. An audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (audio-CASI) technology for measuring those behaviors was tested with 1690 respondents in the 1995 National Survey of Adolescent Males. The respondents were randomly assigned to answer questions using either audio-CASI or a more traditional self-administered questionnaire. Estimates of the prevalence of male-male sex, injection drug use, and sexual contact with intravenous drug users were higher by factors of 3 or more when audio-CASI was used. Increased reporting was also found for several other risk behaviors.