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Prison sexuality consists of sexual relationships between prisoners or between a prisoner and a prison employee or other persons to whom prisoners have access. Since prisons are usually separated by sex, most sexual activity is with a same-sex partner. Exceptions to this include sex with spouses/partners during conjugal visits and sex with a prison employee of the opposite sex.
Some victims of rape or other sexual violence incidents are male. It is estimated that approximately one in six men experienced sexual abuse during childhood. Historically, rape was thought to be, and defined as, a crime committed solely against females. This belief is still held in some parts of the world, but rape of males is now commonly criminalized and has been subject to more discussion than in the past.
Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially at fault for the harm that befell them. There is historical and current prejudice against the victims of domestic violence and sex crimes, such as the greater tendency to blame victims of rape than victims of robbery if victims and perpetrators knew each other prior to the commission of the crime.
Prison rape commonly refers to the rape of inmates in prison by other inmates or prison staff. In 2001, Human Rights Watch estimated that at least 4.3 million inmates had been raped while incarcerated in the United States. A United States Department of Justice report, Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, states that "In 2011–12, an estimated 4.0% of state and federal prison inmates and 3.2% of jail inmates reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another inmate or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission to the facility, if less than 12 months." However, advocates dispute the accuracy of the numbers, saying they seem to under-report the real numbers of sexual assaults in prison, especially among juveniles.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA) is the first United States federal law intended to deter the sexual assault of prisoners. The bill was signed into law on September 4, 2003.
Rape culture is a setting, as described by some sociological theories, in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to that setting's attitudes about gender and sexuality. Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-shaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by sexual violence, or some combination of these. It has been used to describe and explain behavior within social groups, including prison rape and in conflict areas where war rape is used as psychological warfare. Entire societies have been alleged to be rape cultures.
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a sexual nature; however, some sex offenders have simply violated a law contained in a sexual category. Some of the serious crimes which usually result in a mandatory sex-offender classification are sexual assault, statutory rape, bestiality, child sexual abuse, incest, rape, and sexual imposition.
Rape can be categorized in different ways: for example, by reference to the situation in which it occurs, by the identity or characteristics of the victim, and by the identity or characteristics of the perpetrator. These categories are referred to as types of rape. The types described below are not mutually exclusive: a given rape can fit into multiple categories, by for example being both a prison rape and a gang rape, or both a custodial rape and the rape of a child.
Rape by gender classifies types of rape by the sex and gender of both the rapist and the victim. This scope includes both rape and sexual assault more generally. Most research indicates that rape affects women disproportionately, with the majority of people convicted being men; however, since the broadening of the definition of rape in 2012 by the FBI, more attention is being given to male rape, including females raping males.
Gay Johnson McDougall is an American lawyer who has spent her career addressing international human rights and racial discrimination. She is currently a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Leitner Center on International Law and Justice of Fordham University Law School. She was executive director of Global Rights, Partners for Justice. In August 2005, she was named the first United Nations Independent Expert on Minority Issues, serving until 2011.
The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (NPREC) was a U.S. bipartisan panel established by the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act. The commission was charged with studying sexual assaults in U.S. jails and prisons and presenting a report based on its findings.
No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons is the title of an influential, book-length 2001 report by Human Rights Watch on prison rape in the United States. The report is credited with playing a major role in the 2003 passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people face difficulties in prison such as increased vulnerability to sexual assault, other kinds of violence, and trouble accessing necessary medical care. While much of the available data on LGBTQ inmates comes from the United States, Amnesty International maintains records of known incidents internationally in which LGBTQ prisoners and those perceived to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender have suffered torture, ill-treatment and violence at the hands of fellow inmates as well as prison officials.
Prison rape or jail rape is sexual assault of people while they are incarcerated. The phrase is commonly used to describe rape of inmates by other inmates, or to describe rape of inmates by staff. It is a significant, if controversial, part of what is studied under the wider concept of prison sexuality.
Brenda V. Smith is a law professor at American University's Washington College of Law. She served on the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission.
Human rights in Liberia became a focus of international attention when the country's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, was named one of the three female co-winners of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, all of whom were cited "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".
The incarceration of women in the United States refers to the imprisonment of women in both prisons and jails in the United States. There are approximately 219,000 incarcerated women in the US according to a November 2018 report by the Prison Policy Initiative, and the rate of incarceration of women in the United States is at a historic and global high, with 133 women in correctional facilities per every 100,000 female citizens. The United States is home to just 4% of the world's female population, yet the US is responsible for 33% of the entire world's incarcerated female population. The steep rise in the population of incarcerated women in the US is linked to the complex history of the war on drugs and the US's prison–industrial complex, which lead to mass incarceration among many demographics, but had particularly dramatic impacts on women and especially women of color. However, women made up only 10.4% of the US prison and jail population, as of 2015.
Valerie Jenness is an author, researcher, public policy advisor, and professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society and in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Jenness is currently a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) and prior to that, was a senior visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Michigan. Jenness served as dean of the School of Social Ecology from 2009 to 2015 and chair of the Department of Criminology, Law and Society from 2001-2006. Jenness is credited with conducting the first systemic study of transgender women in men's prisons.
Michael Aaron Persky is an American attorney and former judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court from 2003 to 2018.
Elaine Sandra Byers is a Canadian psychologist, sex researcher, educator and therapist. As a faculty member of psychology at the University of New Brunswick, she established the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence.
References
- 1 2 3 "The Commissioners". National Prison Rape Elimination Commission. Archived from the original on 2008-05-08. Retrieved 2008-06-08.
- ↑ Peek, Christine (2003). "Breaking Out of the Prison Hierarchy: Transgendered Prisoners, Rape, and the Eighth Amendment" (PDF). Santa Clara Law Review. 44. Santa Clara University School of Law: 1211–48. ISSN 0146-0315. OCLC 2842601. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-10-10. Retrieved 2010-01-13. Scholar search
- ↑ "Professor at The U Serves on National Prison Rape Elimination Commission" (Press release). University of South Dakota. 2005-02-08. Retrieved 2008-06-07.