“He Acted as If He Owned Me”: An Exploratory Case Study Analysis of Correctional Staff Sexual Misconduct Against Women on Parole

While the Prison Rape Elimination Act focuses on sexual victimization in correctional settings, staff-perpetrated sexual misconduct against women under community-based correctional supervision has received little attention. This study explored women’s experiences of sexual victimization by correctional staff while on parole and used a case study approach to examine sexual victimization incidents experienced by ten women. Women described how staff’s misuse of power permeated the abuse tactics. Officers used their status to gain access to women, applied individualized tactics with promises and threats, and controlled when the abuse ended. Practices and policies are needed to build safety for women under community-based correctional supervision.

Sex logics: Negotiating the prison rape elimination act (PREA) against its’ administrative, safety, and cultural burdens

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) reforms correctional institutions via administrative mechanisms and represents a major shift in both correctional policy and workplace practice. Using qualitative data within six prisons in one U.S. state, finding suggest that staff view PREA as an administrative, safety, and cultural burden, which creates a misalignment of institutional logics. Rather than seeing themselves as central to eliminating prison sexual misconduct/violence, staff see PREA as interfering with their “real” custody/control work. This misalignment has major implications for the productive implementation and use of PREA and the broader shift to administrative rather than legal processes for institutional reform.

An Analysis of Statutes Criminalizing Correctional Officer Sexual Misconduct With Inmates

The 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) mandates that U.S. state correctional systems regulate and reduce staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct in state correctional facilities. As data on correctional officer sexual misconduct are limited and its legal definition varies across states, this study utilized statutory analysis to document how staff sexual misconduct is defined and how it is punished across state correctional systems. The most notable finding is that although all 50 states have statutes designed to protect incarcerated persons from being sexually victimized by correctional staff, they are far from uniform.

Processes and Practices Associated With Reporting and Investigation of Sexual Misconduct Within Prison: A Novel Case Study Constructed Through Litigation Documents

The reporting and investigation of sexual assault within prison is complex. Although prevalence data are available, there is little known about the processes and case attrition within prison that mirror the attrition in the community between reporting, investigation, and outcomes. This critical case study uses secondary data from a class action litigation on behalf of incarcerated women who experienced staff sexual misconduct in one state system. Multiple sources of data are used quantitatively and qualitatively to examine prison processes. Prison Rape Elimination Act Standards are used as a framework to interpret the analysis and illustrate potential barriers for the successful implementation through case narratives. Although secondary data analyses have limitations, these data would be difficult to obtain under other circumstances and includes perspectives of the affected women and key institutional actors. The goal of this study is to inform and improve the prison-based processes in service of reducing and/or preventing victimization.