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Nationally, 4 percent of inmates report being sexually assaulted

Sexual assaults greater in Ohio prisons

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By Tom Beyerlein , Staff Writer Updated 11:02 PM Thursday, August 26, 2010

A federal study released Thursday, Aug. 26, estimated that more than 88,000 inmates — 64,000 in prisons and 24,000 in jails — told researchers they were sexually assaulted by staff or other inmates in the previous 12 months. That’s 4.4 percent of prison inmates and 3.1 percent of jail inmates.

Of the five Ohio prisons surveyed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, three prisons exceeded the national average: Lebanon Correctional Institution (5.6 percent), the Ohio Reformatory for Women at Marysville (7.7) and Southeastern Correctional Institution at Lancaster (5.3). Mansfield Correctional Institution had the national average of 4.4 percent, and the Correctional Reception Center, a short-time facility for inmates headed to other prisons, had 1.1 percent reporting sexual victimization.

At the Montgomery County Jail, 1.4 percent of inmates told researchers they were abused by other inmates. That’s virtually the same as the national average of 1.3 percent for inmate-on-inmate abuse in jails. The inmates reported no staff-on-inmate misconduct.

Ernie L. Moore, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, was not available for comment Thursday. Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The study was conducted to meet requirements of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act, and covered the period from October 2008 to December 2009. A Justice Department spokesman said nationwide standards proposed by a bipartisan Prison Rape Elimination Commission would be sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget this fall. Congress had set a June 2010 deadline for completing work on the regulations.

A Bureau of Justice Statistics study covering 2006 found Ohio prisons had disproportionately high numbers of allegations of sexual misconduct by staff and inmates, and officials disproportionately deemed allegations to be unsubstantiated or unfounded.

The new study includes incidents of sexual misconduct reported to bureau researchers but not necessarily to prison officials.

Female inmates tended to report more abuse by other female inmates than by staff, while male inmates reported more sexual misconduct with female staff. Rothstein said that might be because women’s prisons tend to be staffed mostly by women, while prison officials hire women guards in men’s prisons because of employment law.

About half of the reported inmate-on-inmate encounters were not consensual, while more than half of staff-inmate sex was done willingly, the study said. Among male prisoners who reported sexual activity, two-thirds said it involved female staff.

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