Congress’ Findings in Consideration of the Prison Rape Elimination Act

These are among Congress’ findings when the Prison Rape Elimination Act was under consideration:

The scope of jail rape is a topic that has lacked sufficient research. However, there was a conservative estimation that approximately 13% of inmates have been victims of a sexual assault while incarcerated. Many inmates reported that they had been repeatedly victimized. At the time of the research, in the past two decades the total number of inmates sexually assaulted is estimated to be more than 1 million.

There is more of a risk of sexual victimization if inmates are mentally ill. There are more mentally handicapped individuals in U.S. jails and prisons than in the nation’s psychiatric clinics. The number of mentally handicapped inmates in jails and prisons was estimated to be 16% at the time of the report.

There is an increased risk of sexual victimization for young first time offenders. There is a 5 times greater chance that juveniles will be sexually assaulted in adult jails as opposed to juvenile detention centers—oftentimes within the first 2 days of incarceration.

Most jail staff members have not received sufficient training to be able to help with prevention, reporting, or treatment of inmate sexual assaults.

Many times, inmates do not report jail rape. Inmates who have been victimized often do not receive treatment. But if they do, it is not adequate treatment, considering the acute psychological and physical effects of sexual assault.

Learn more in Part 1 of this series.

Helping Texas jail detainees and their families with resources is one of the purposes of this website. There is no intention of suggesting that people or organizations have been involved in misdeeds.

–Guest Contributor