Miriam Northcutt Bohmert
Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Indiana University
Key Findings
- On average, perpetrators of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual violence were: incarcerated longer than their victims, older than their victims, somewhat larger in physical stature than victims and had received more “aggressive misconduct charges” than their victims.
- Men with a history of childhood sexual assault had greatly elevated odds of sexual victimization.
- A lack of data in various areas – gang membership, mental health problems, sexual orientation, participation in the prison economy – prohibited a more complete understanding of victimization.
- Future research on the victims of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual violence should consider childhood sexual abuse, mental health conditions, and the vulnerability of non-heterosexual men to sexual attack both in prison and in the outside community.
Description
In the article, “Men’s Vulnerability to Prisoner-on-Prisoner Sexual Violence: A State Correctional System Case Study,” Bohmert analyzes information from an unnamed Midwestern state’s officially confirmed incidents of male prisoner-on-prisoner sexual violence to assess imprisoned men’s vulnerability to sexual assault by a fellow inmate, prior to the implementation of policies aimed at reducing sexual violence against inmates U.S. Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA. Bohmert found that compared to their perpetrators, victims of prisoner-on-prisoner sexual assault, on average, had a first incarceration that began more recently, were younger than their assailants and were smaller in stature than their perpetrators. Bohmert suggests that future studies about prisoner-on-prisoner sexual violence replicate this research, in the same state, after PREA reforms are enacted, to determine whether the groups as victims in this study become less vulnerable due to reforms.