Male Sexual Assault exceeds Female Sexual Assault in 2008

Piste · 08-02-2012 3:59pm #1

^Couldn't edit the title, meant to put in "In America"! up there!

I found a really interesting blogpost on American Prisons, here's an excerpt:

N+1 wrote:

In January, prodded in part by outrage over a series of articles in the New York Review of Books, the Justice Department finally released an estimate of the prevalence of sexual abuse in penitentiaries. The reliance on filed complaints appeared to understate the problem. For 2008, for example, the government had previously tallied 935 confirmed instances of sexual abuse. After asking around, and performing some calculations, the Justice Department came up with a new number: 216,000. That’s 216,000 victims, not instances. These victims are often assaulted multiple times over the course of the year. The Justice Department now seems to be saying that prison rape accounted for the majority of all rapes committed in the US in 2008, likely making the United States the first country in the history of the world to count more rapes for men than for women.

So I looked up RAINN (Rape Abuse Incest National Network) (http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequency-of-sexual-assault) and the stats they have on sexual assault are that there is an average of 207,754 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year. I don't think this includes prisons as the data on prison rape have only recently been gathered.

It's mad isn't it? It seems so counter-intuitive, ask the average person on the street and they'll probably tell you the vast majority of sexual abuse victims are female, but apparently not.

Dravokivich · 08-02-2012 4:19pm

Piste wrote: »

It's mad isn't it? It seems so counter-intuitive, ask the average person on the street and they'll probably tell you the vast majority of sexual abuse victims are female, but apparently not.

I think its mainly what gender the rapist is expected to be is what most people would be inclined to focus on, more so than that of the victim.

But that's purely an assumption on my part.

Piste · 08-02-2012 4:22pm

Oh yeah, most people will assume the perpetrator is a man for sure. I would have thought that most people would think (maybe it's just me!) that most victims are female, I found the stats to be quite suprising.

amacachi · 08-02-2012 5:31pm

Piste wrote: »

It's mad isn't it? It seems so counter-intuitive, ask the average person on the street and they'll probably tell you the vast majority of sexual abuse victims are female, but apparently not.

With domestic abuse/violence it's similar. Everyone thinks of the battered wife but it's close enough to a 50/50 split.

I'm not going to compare groping in a club with rape but studies often do to suit themselves. Under such definitions I don't know a single fella who hasn't been "sexually assaulted" since they turned 16 and I assume it's similar for women.

Giselle · 08-02-2012 5:42pm

People might be interested in this link.

http://www.spr.org/

Most people, like me, will be horrified at the concept of rape as part of the penalty. Unfortunately it seems acceptable or even desirable to many that those convicted of crimes, especially against the person, be subjected to sexual torture and abuse.

You only have to read certain threads in AH to realise that many absolutely revel in the idea of prisoners being abused by other prisoners, repeatedly and viciously.

Its very sad.

Dr. Manhattan · 08-02-2012 10:03pm

How useful is it to compare those stats though? Prison society is not indicative of anything compared to normal society, the stats for theft and non-sexual assault, for example, would be disproportionate too. It's a population of criminals, cooped up together all day, some of whom have no prospect of release or any kind of reward and therefore less reason to behave according to the rules of normal society. Prison is not likely to make them better behaved, if anything it's giving them greater opportunity to commit these crimes.

Piste · 09-02-2012 1:03am

It's useful to show the stats because it's indicative of the scale of the problem. I mean people know that sexual abuse occurs in prison, thinly-veiled references to dropping the soap are made in TV shows and films all the time. When the absolute numbers of sexual abuse victims in the prison population (a group of 2 million people) exceeds that of the entire population (312 million) (an absolutely huge discrepency) it has to be cause for alarm.

fly_agaric · 09-02-2012 1:17am

Piste wrote: »

It's useful to show the stats because it's indicative of the scale of the problem. I mean people know that sexual abuse occurs in prison, thinly-veiled references to dropping the soap are made in TV shows and films all the time. When the absolute numbers of sexual abuse victims in the prison population (a group of 2 million people) exceeds that of the entire population (312 million) (an absolutely huge discrepency) it has to be cause for alarm.

I don't think something can be a cause for alarm (edit: as in "alarm" among the general public) and reliable source of off-colour humour at the same time?

I doubt the average joe-soap in the US would be overly disturbed. Probably think the prisoners deserve it.:(

Male Sexual Assault exceeds Female Sexual Assault in 2008

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