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This report by the U.S. Department of Justice's Review Panel on Prison Rape concludes that prisons and jails that are able to keep inmates safe from sexual abuse have well-trained staff, committed leaders, and strong oversight. The report summarizes the findings from the Review Panel’s 2011 hearings on U.S. prisons and jails with especially high and low rates of sexual victimization.

Examines 2007 and 2008 data from the Survey of Sexual Violence (SSV). Conducted since 2004, the SSV is an annual collection of official records on incidents of inmate-on-inmate and staff-on-inmate sexual victimization. This report presents counts of nonconsensual sexual acts, abusive sexual contacts, staff sexual misconduct, and staff sexual harassment reported to correctional authorities in adult prisons, jails, and other adult correctional facilities. Appendix tables include counts of sexual victimization, by type, for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, all state systems, and surveyed jail jurisdictions. An in-depth examination of substantiated incidents is also presented, covering the number and characteristics of victims and perpetrators, location, time of day, nature of the injuries, impact on the victims, and sanctions imposed on the perpetrators. Highlights include the following: correctional administrators reported 7,444 allegations of sexual victimization in 2008 and 7,374 allegations in 2007; about 54% of substantiated incidents of sexual victimization involved only inmates, while 46% of substantiated incidents involved staff with inmates; and female inmates were disproportionately victimized by both other inmates and staff in federal and state prisons, as well as local jails.

This report, “the first of its kind that relied on data from juvenile offenders, surveyed the incidence of sexual victimization in the United States by facility” (p. iii). Sections following an executive summary include: background; National Prison Rape Reduction Commission and national standards; selection of juvenile justice facilities for the public hearing; institutions with the lowest prevalence of sexual victimization; institutions with the highest prevalence of sexual victimization; general observations; common themes; unresolved institutional questions that warrant further study; and conclusion.

Results from the second National Inmate Survey (NIS-2) documenting inmate sexual assault are presented. The NIS-2 “is part of the National Prison Rape Statistics Program, which collects administrative records of reported sexual violence, and allegations of sexual victimization directly from victims, through surveys of adult inmates in prisons and jails and surveys of youth held in juvenile correctional facilities” (p.6). Sections of this report include highlights; incidents of sexual victimization; facility level rates; demographic characteristics; sexual history and orientation; criminal justice status; predicted victimization rates; inmate-on-inmate victimization; staff sexual misconduct; and survey items from the National Inmate Survey, 2008-09 related to inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, staff sexual victimization, and follow-up questions to inmates reporting no sexual activity. The rate of sexual victimization in prisons is 4.4% and 3.1% in jails over a 12-month period.

Description: Covering the calendar year 2007, this fifth annual report to Congress summarizes the activities of the Office of Justice Programs and the National Institute of Corrections to curtail prison rape. In addition to an introduction and background, this report reviews activities and accomplishments for the: Office of Justice Programs (OJP); National Institute of Justice (NIJ)—legislative mandate and research awards and activities; Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)—legislative mandate, expert panel meetings, administrative survey collections, victim self-report survey collections, coordination efforts, and PREA-related publications; Review Panel on Prison Rape—legislative mandate and information gathering; Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)—legislative mandate, grant accomplishments, and other assistance activities; and National Institute of Corrections (NIC)—legislative mandate, classroom training, Web chats, professional conferences, informational videos, technical assistance, other assistance activities, additional work, evaluation, and national clearinghouse. Appendixes include: NIC/WCL (Washington College of Law) Newsletter; PREA statewide probation and parole direction; and a summary of the health care subject matter experts meeting.

This entry contains forms for documenting an injury from an attack are provided. The incident report compiles information regarding: responding law enforcement agency; abuse, neglect, exploitation, or death; serious incidents (to be reported within 24 hours); location of incident; and alleged victim/juvenile information. The internal investigation form records: alleged victim(s); alleged perpetrator(s); person reported to; date of allegation reporting; date of internal investigation initiation and completion; incident specifics; and person completing the investigation.

Findings are presented from hearings intended “to aid BJS [Bureau of Justice Statistics] in the identification of common characteristics of victims and perpetrators of rape [in jails],” and to also aid in identification of facility characteristics where rape incidence is high or low (p. 4). Four sections comprise this report: role of the Review Panel on Prison Rape; panel members and staff; panel’s 2008 jail hearings—selection of jails invited to testify, identified common characteristics of victims and perpetrators of sexual violence, and common characteristics of jail systems with high or low prevalence of sexual assault; and best practices to lessen the risk of rape in U.S. prisons—training of staff and inmates, classification, surveillance, reporting, investigation, prosecution, and relevant policies and practices.

The Internal Audit Division is responsible for examining and evaluating the adequacy of the agency's system of internal controls and the quality of agency performance in carrying out assigned responsibilities.

The scope of these audits involves reliability of information systems; compliance with stature, board policy, agency policy or operating policy/procedures; safeguarding of agency assets; economical and efficient use of agency resources; and accomplishment of established objectives and goals for agency operations or programs.

The Internal Audit Division also provides assistance to management through the review of draft agency policies, service on agency committees, advice to agency management, completion of special projects based on management requests, participation in System Development Life Cycle, and participation in agency re-engineering efforts.

This report fulfills the requirement under the Prison Rape Elimination Act for the collection and reporting of data in juvenile facilities. It details the results from the first-ever national survey of administrative records on sexual violence in adult and juvenile correctional facilities.

This report fulfills the requirement under the Prison Rape Elimination Act to provide a list of local jails according to the prevalence of sexual victimization. It presents findings for the 282 local jails in the National Inmate Survey. The survey on sexual victimization, conducted by RTI International, was administered to 40,419 jail inmates between April and December 2007.

This semiannual report summarizes the work of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) from October 1, 2007 to March 31, 2008 During this reporting period, the OIG received 2,680 complaints involving the BOP. The most common allegations made against BOP employees included official misconduct and force, abuse, and rights violations. The vast majority of complaints dealt with non-criminal issues that the OIG referred to the BOP’s Office of Internal Affairs for review.