Texas prison officials announced Friday they have reduced inmate rape by 40 percent in the past three years, but reports say the number may not be an accurate accounting.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Brad Livingston says the statistics released Friday to a Hearst newspaper are three years old. Livingston said the state has made progress in reducing inmate-on-inmate sexual assault since that time, but the numbers announced Friday needed to be re-evaluated.
A Bureau of Justice Statistics anonymous survey of prison inmates done in 2007 estimated that 15.7 percent of the inmates at the Estelle Unit alone had been victims of sexual abuse. That would have accounted for about 433 inmates in that one unit in 2007.
The numbers reflect sexual assaults that were reported to the Office of Inspector General and were determined to have some element of non-consensual sexual assault.
The state prison system has 248 confirmed inmate-on-inmate sexual assaults in 2007; 195 in 2008; and 154 in 2009. However, the state's numbers may not reflect the size of the problem.
“From all of the reporting, the alleged sexual assaults in our system, those numbers are headed in the right direction,” Livingston said, adding, “One sexual assault is one too many.”
“We continue to ratchet up our review and our involvement and make sure we have a zero tolerance of sexual assault in prison,” Livingston told the Associated Press.
If the survey of 15 Texas prison units is accurate, more than 2,600 state inmates were victims of sexual abuse in 2007 — almost 10 times what the state is reporting. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report also found that five of the 10 prisons with the highest rates of sexual abuse in the country were located in Texas in 2007.
Corrections spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said because the research study was anonymous, there is no way to verify the numbers.
She said some incidents that offenders consider sexual assault do not meet the legal definition, and in other instances an offender may claim a security strip search was a sexual assault. The Department has no numbers reflecting inmate complaints allegeding strip search procedures to be sexually assaulting in nature.
State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said he believes the prison system narrowly defines sexual assault to reduce the magnitude of the problem. Coleman added that just as in the population outsde prison, rape is an under-reported crime.
Coleman said there needs to be a system of anonymity and when someone is identified as an assailant, he suggested they be segregated from the rest of the inmate population because their vicitms may fear reporting the sexual assault due to retaliation.
Livingston said the prison system has hired a sexual assault ombudsman in the inspector general's office as required by legislation passed in 2007 by Coleman and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston.
“We have done a very extensive job of making sure we communicate very extensively and widely to the offender population as to how they can report a sexual assault,” Livingston said. “We have done a number of things that would serve to reduce the numbers.”
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Texas Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Brad Livingston says the statistics released Friday to a Hearst newspaper are three years old. Livingston said the state has made progress in reducing inmate-on-inmate sexual assault since that time, but the numbers announced Friday needed to be re-evaluated.
A Bureau of Justice Statistics anonymous survey of prison inmates done in 2007 estimated that 15.7 percent of the inmates at the Estelle Unit alone had been victims of sexual abuse. That would have accounted for about 433 inmates in that one unit in 2007.
The numbers reflect sexual assaults that were reported to the Office of Inspector General and were determined to have some element of non-consensual sexual assault.
The state prison system has 248 confirmed inmate-on-inmate sexual assaults in 2007; 195 in 2008; and 154 in 2009. However, the state's numbers may not reflect the size of the problem.
“From all of the reporting, the alleged sexual assaults in our system, those numbers are headed in the right direction,” Livingston said, adding, “One sexual assault is one too many.”
“We continue to ratchet up our review and our involvement and make sure we have a zero tolerance of sexual assault in prison,” Livingston told the Associated Press.
If the survey of 15 Texas prison units is accurate, more than 2,600 state inmates were victims of sexual abuse in 2007 — almost 10 times what the state is reporting. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report also found that five of the 10 prisons with the highest rates of sexual abuse in the country were located in Texas in 2007.
Corrections spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said because the research study was anonymous, there is no way to verify the numbers.
She said some incidents that offenders consider sexual assault do not meet the legal definition, and in other instances an offender may claim a security strip search was a sexual assault. The Department has no numbers reflecting inmate complaints allegeding strip search procedures to be sexually assaulting in nature.
State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said he believes the prison system narrowly defines sexual assault to reduce the magnitude of the problem. Coleman added that just as in the population outsde prison, rape is an under-reported crime.
Coleman said there needs to be a system of anonymity and when someone is identified as an assailant, he suggested they be segregated from the rest of the inmate population because their vicitms may fear reporting the sexual assault due to retaliation.
Livingston said the prison system has hired a sexual assault ombudsman in the inspector general's office as required by legislation passed in 2007 by Coleman and state Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston.
“We have done a very extensive job of making sure we communicate very extensively and widely to the offender population as to how they can report a sexual assault,” Livingston said. “We have done a number of things that would serve to reduce the numbers.”
Media Outlets must credit The Black Urban Times
www.theblackurbantimes.com
twitter.com/alicia_c_
facebook.com/theblackurbantimes
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