Sexual Abuse In Prisons

There has been a growing increase in the female population of prison inmates. Harrison and Beck (2006) explain that from the year 2004 to 2005, there was a 2.6% increase in the female inmate population, which is more than the 1.9% increase for males (Blackburn, Mullings, & Marquart 2008). This composition change in itself is a question to ponder, however, this also brings up the topic of sexual abuse. It seems as if any time that women are present in a situation this becomes a possibility of occurrence, even in prisons where there are policies to make sure that it does not happen. Serious infractions occur, such as those where officers and inmates have a persisting sexual relationship, and less serious infractions occur, such as those instances …show more content…
Moss (2007) explains that this act “established a zero tolerance policy for sexual violence and abuse among offenders as well as between staff and offenders” (p. 44). The issue with laws, however, is that sometimes they do not do what they were set out to do. Usually this means that people have decided to take it amongst themselves to not follow them. The issue of sexual abuse in prisons for women inmates has not seemed to have gotten better. Beck and Hughes (2006) explain that while the first post-PREA Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) study, 9.8% of incidents of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence had female victims, while the second study revealed an increase to 15.2% of occurrences (Blackburn et al. 2008). Based on this statistical evidence, it can be concluded that something else needs to be done to stop sexual assaults from occurring in …show more content…
It is possible that criminals may even learn different ideas about sex while they are still amongst society. These ideas may influence their opinions of sexual abuse while they are offenders in prison. These notions about sex may also be influenced by the fact that prisons are no longer sex segregated, meaning that individuals of the same sex will come into contact with one another on a daily basis and their opinions of what is actually sex abuse may come into play. Some individuals may be abused and choose not to report it for fear of humiliation amongst the other prisoners or not even being able to define what occurred as sexual abuse. Even when individuals report the acts that happened to them, it is possible that they may not receive the treatments they need as prisons do not differentiate between the needs of men and women. Even though there have been laws such as the Prison Rape Elimination Act that have been signed into law, rapes still occur in prison at an alarming rate for a place that is supposed to have safeguards against such acts. It is clear that some sort of reformation needs to take place to prevent such acts while in prison, and if these acts continue to occur, there should be therapy that is provided for prisoners on a need basis, to address the specific issues the individual may