I have been reading 'Sexual health and behaviour of Queensland prisoners: With Queensland and New South Wales comparisons' (Sydney: National Drug Research Institute 2010) [PDF ]by Tony Butler, Juliet Richters, Lorraine Yap, Cerissa Papanastasiou, Alun Richards, Karen Schneider, Luke Grant, Anthony Smith and Basil Donovan, the 2008 'Sexual health and behaviour of New South Wales prisoners' [PDF] by Richters, Butler, Yap, Kristie Kirkwood, Grant, Smith, Schneider & Donovan and 'The Decline in Sexual Assaults in Men's Prisons in New South Wales: A Systems Approach' by Yap, Richters, Butler, Schneider, Grant and Donovan in (2011) Journal of Interpersonal Violence 1–25 after encountering R v Guingab [2011] VSC 110 and headlines in today's newspapers that 'Prison safer from rape than outside'.
The SMH article for example reported -
Inmates are safer from rape and sexual assault inside prison than they are on the outside, a new survey has found.The JIV article was more nuanced, with the authors acknowledging that -
About 60% of women and 13% of men in prison reported sexual coercion - including rape - before their imprisonment, say the researchers from the University of NSW.
Once behind bars, only 2.5% of male prisoners and 3.9% of female prisoners said they had been forced or frightened into unwanted sexual activity.
"Our evidence suggests that these people are at less risk of sexual coercion and rape inside prison than outside,"
Despite the numerous studies and reports, there is little agreement among researchers on a definition of sexual assault and rape while incarcerated. Time frames when sexual assaults occurred, furthermore, are nonspecific; we do not know if sexual assaults occurred recently or in the distant past (eg 20 years ago) during which prison policies may have changed significantly. Few of these studies, if any, have focused on prisons reporting a decline in sexual assaults.They referred to David Heilpern's 1998 study, that reported 26% of 300 male inmates aged between 18 and 25 years in NSW prisons had been sexually assaulted, with 50% subjected to other assaults. Accounts from his interviews on prisoners' rape experiences "indicated collusion and indifference by custodial staff to rapes". Unsurprisingly -
readers were left with the impression that male sexual violence was endemic in New South Wales’ prisons. He attributed the sexual violence to “perpetrators seeking power through sexual violence, the acquiescence of prison authorities, overcrowding, and the prior sexual experiences of perpetrators” (p. 223). Among his many recommendations, he suggested that prisoners aged 18 to 25 years should be housed in small groups of separately managed units. Prison officers should also be trained on sexual assaults with prisoners who had been sexually assaulted and failure to report sexual assaults should not go unpunished. Furthermore, the state should assume legal responsibility for the safety of prisoners.Heilpern's claims were consistent with other studies, including research noted in this blog (eg here).
Yap, Richters et al offer some comfort in their 2011 article, claiming that -
Since Heilpern’s study, several population-based surveys of prisoners have shown that nonconsensual sex between male inmates in NSW prisons has steadily declined. In particular, the NSW Inmate Health Surveys, a highly comparative data source, report a decrease in male sexual assaults from 1.5% in 1996 to 0.1% in 2009 (p < .0001) and among inmates between 18 and 25 years from 2.7% in 1996 to 0% in 2009 (p < .003), much lower than Heilpern’s research.
As part of the 2007 Sexual Health and Attitudes of Australian Prisoners survey (Richters et al., 2008), we carried out a number of in-depth interviews with prisoners and ex-prisoners. The qualitative study provides additional evidence that there has been a “real” decline in the number of sexual assaults in NSW prisons after the mid-1990s and gives more detailed explanations for this decline.
