Addressing Sexual Violence in Prisons

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REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THIS PROJECT?

Before the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) of 2003, it was not clear the extent to which state departments of corrections (DOCs) were addressing sexual violence in systematic ways. In fact, little information existed about what strategies were being put into practice in prison systems across the country. PREA has changed the way DOCs are addressing prison sexual violence (PSV). Mandatory recordkeeping and a push for eliminating such incidents has moved many DOCs to develop specific responses to PSV or to further refine approaches already in place. The purpose of the current project was to provide a national snapshot of DOC initiatives to address PSV, as well as to identify specific practices that seemed to be, in the absence of formal evaluations, particularly promising or innovative in nature.

HOW WAS THIS PROJECT CONDUCTED?

We conducted three tasks:

1. The Survey of State Correctional Administrators involved written surveys and follow-up phone interviews with leaders of state DOCs. Forty-five states participated (a 90 percent response rate). During the survey, state administrators described the state's overall approach to PSV and nominated specific strategies as particularly promising.
2. The Survey of Promising Practices involved phone interviews with 58 DOC representatives who spoke about 67 promising practices nominated during the Survey of State Correctional Administrators. Interviews were conducted with facility directors, service providers, or other state personnel affiliated with nominated approaches.
3. Case studies involved site visits to states we determined could provide the most informative lessons on addressing sexual violence in prison to the largest audience of practitioners, researchers, and policymakers. Eleven case study states were chosen: Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Utah.

We employed a broad definition of sexual violence for the purposes of this project. We asked states to tell us about their programs and procedures for all types of sexual violence and coercion that might be happening, including inmate-against-inmate, inmate-against-staff, and staff-against-inmate violence. Much of the focus of this report is on inmate-against-inmate and staff-against-inmate violence as few states addressed inmate-against-staff PSV. For some states, procedures and polices were the same regardless of who might be perpetrating the violence. For others, procedures varied based on perpetrator type.

Findings presented represent the time period during which information was collected (November 2004 through September 2005). Some states, however, may have initiated policies and approaches since data were collected because PREA prompted new action and thought about PSV policies for many state administrators. Table H.1 indexes the states highlighted in each chapter of this report. The list of states highlighted is not an exhaustive list of those actually implementing particular responses; rather, these are the states we chose to discuss in the narrative of this report as illustrative examples.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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