This study reports that 4.4% of prison inmates and 3.1% of jail inmates experienced sexual victimization within a period of twelve months or since admission to a correctional facility, if the admission took place within less than twelve months. "Nationwide, these percentages suggest that approximately 88,500 adults held in prisons and jails at the time of the survey had been sexually victimized." Approximately 2.1% of prison inmates and 1.5% of jail inmates reported inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, whereas approximately 2.8% of prison inmates and 2.0% of jail inmates reported staff sexual misconduct. In comparison to male inmates in prisons and jails, the BJS Report found that female inmates were more than twice as likely to report inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization. Reported sexual activity with facility staff involved 2.9% of male prisoners, 2.1% of male jail inmates, 2.1% of female prisoners, and 1.5% of female jail inmates. The rates of reported inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization were significantly higher for inmates who had the following characteristics: Being white or multi-racial, Having a college education, Having a sexual orientation other than heterosexual, and Experiencing sexual victimization prior to coming to the facility. The rates of reported staff sexual misconduct were lower among inmates who were white and twenty-five years old or older, whereas the rates were higher among inmates who had a college education and who experienced sexual victimization before coming to the facility. Among inmates reporting inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, 13% of male prisoners, 19% of male jail inmates, and 4% of female inmates in both prisons and jails said they were victimized within the first twenty-four hours of admission to a facility.25 Among inmates reporting staff-oninmate sexual victimization, 16% of male prisoners, 30% of male jail inmates, 5% of female prisoners, and 4% of female jail inmates said they were victimized within the first twenty-four hours of admission to a facility. Significantly, most perpetrators of staff sexual misconduct were female and most victims were male: among male victims of staff sexual misconduct, 69% of prisoners and 64% of jail inmates reported sexual activity with female staff

Between February 2011 and May 2012, BJS completed the third National Inmate Survey (NIS-3) in 233 state and federal prisons, 358 jails, and 15 special confinement facilities operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Military, and correctional authorities in Indian country. The survey, conducted by RTI International (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina), was administered to 92,449 inmates age 18 or older, including 38,251 inmates in state and federal prisons, 52,926 in jails, 573 in ICE facilities, 539 in military facilities, and 160 in Indian country jails.

Rape is a fact of life for the incarcerated. Can American society maintain the commitment expressed in recent federal legislation to eliminate the rampant and costly sexual abuse that has been institutionalized into its system of incarceration? Each year, as many as 200,000 individuals are victims of various types of sexual abuse perpetrated in American prisons, jails, juvenile detention facilities, and lockups. As many as 80,000 of them suffer violent or repeated rape. Those who are outside the incarceration experience are largely unaware of this ongoing physical and mental damage—abuses that not only affect the victims and perpetrators, but also impose vast costs on society as a whole. This book supplies a uniquely full account of this widespread sexual abuse problem. Author Michael Singer has drawn on official reports to provide a realistic assessment of the staggering financial cost to society of this sexual abuse, and comprehensively addressed the current, severely limited legal procedures for combating sexual abuse in incarceration. The book also provides an evaluation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 and its recently announced national standards, and assesses their likely future impact on the institution of prison rape in America.