Fewer than one in 500 prisoners reported being sexually abused or harassed in Maryland prisons last year ? a figure believed to be well short of the actual number of sexual attacks, according to a government study released Sunday.
Out of more than 23,000 inmates in Maryland prisons in 2005, only 15 reported a nonconsensual sex act by an inmate and one reported a case of sexual abuse. Seventeen reported staff sexual misconduct with inmates, the study states.
Two of the 15 claims of inmate nonconsensual sex in Maryland were substantiated, while three are being investigated. Prison officials substantiated the one report of sexual abuse by an inmate. Four of the 17 allegations of staff sexual misconduct are being investigated, according to the report.
But sexual violence in prisons is more common than reported because inmates fear reprisal, adhere to a code of silence and do not trust prison staff, according to the study?s authors.
“Administrative records alone cannot provide reliable estimates of sexual violence,” wrote Allen Beck and Paige Harrison, of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The underreporting of sexual violence in prisons is concerning, experts said.
“It?s a real and serious problem,” said Malcolm Feeley, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. “It may be the single largest shame of the American criminal justice system, and that?s saying a lot.”
The study is based on reports to corrections officials in 2005 at more than 1,800 correctional facilities holding about 1.7 million inmates ? 78 percent of the adult prison population.
The report also tracked sexual violence in local jails.
Baltimore City, which averaged a daily population of 3,710 last year in jail, had two reports of nonconsensual sex between inmates and one report of sexual misconduct by staff, none of which were substantiated, according to the study.
The report is the second required by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, which was an attempt to solve a problem believed to be widespread.
This year?s study includes more detailed information than the first study, published a year ago. The second study includes data on the circumstances surrounding each incident, the characteristics of the victims and perpetrators, the kind of force or pressure used, injuries, sanctions imposed and victim assistance.
“The greatest improvements in reporting were for staff sexual misconduct and harassment,” the report said.
Only 15 percent of the sexual violence incidents were substantiated, the report said.
The bureau is working on ways to better measure sexual violence in prisons and jails, including anonymous self-administered surveys, the report said.
Prison culture makes it next to impossible for victims of such assaults to come forward, Feeley said.The problem, he said, is exacerbated by problems of overcrowding, lax oversight and very long sentences that lead to prisoner disillusionment with the system.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
