Fewer than 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse in jails, prisons, and other correctional facilities were substantiated in 2007 and 2008 among an estimated total of 400,000 such incidents in those years, say two Justice Department reports issued this week. The estimate of 200,000 allegations of sexal abuse annually was included in a Justice Department proposal on national rules under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Detailed figures on how actual cases were handled were in a report yesterday from the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Federal, state and local correctional authorities reported an estimated 7,374 allegations of sexual victimization involving incarcerated men and women in 2007 and 7,444 in 2008, BJS said. More than half (993) of all substantiated incidents were perpetrated by another inmate. More than fifty percent of these incidents (503) involved nonconsensual sexual acts. Among all substantiated incidents of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, 69 percent involved force or threat force, offers of protection or favors, bribery, blackmail or other type of pressure.