Washington, DC, USA – 23 June 2009 The sexual abuse of people with disabilities in jails and prisons is a serious and common problem. It may be committed by other prisoners or sometimes by guards or other staff. In some cases, it is ignored or tolerated by staff and administration.
In 2003, the U.S. Congress passed the National Prison Rape Elimination Act which established the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission to study sexual assault in American prisons. The Commission released its report on June 23, 2009. Not surprisingly, the report found that rape and sexual abuse of incarcerated individuals is common in jails and prisons.
A survey by the Bureau of justice statistics estimated that more than 60,000 individuals incarcerated in state or federal prisons are raped one or more times in a period of 12 months. However, the rates varied greatly across facilities suggesting that the problem of prison rape is not inevitable.
Not surprisingly, certain categories of prisoners were at greater risk, including prisoners with intellectual or disabilities or mental health issues. The report states:
Youth, small stature, and lack of experience in correctional facilities appear to increase the risk of sexual abuse by other prisoners. So does having a mental disability or serious mental illness. Research on sexual abuse in correctional facilities consistently documents the vulnerability of men and women with non-heterosexual orientations and transgender individuals.
nlike being young or inexperienced, some risk factors may be longer-lasting. Physical and developmental disabilities and mental illnesses can significantly affect an individual’s ability to function and remain safe in a correctional facility. Individuals with severe developmental disabilities are at especially high risk of being sexually abused. Their naivety, tendency to misinterpret social cues, and desire to fit in make many developmentally disabled individuals vulnerable to manipulation and control by others.24 If they’ve previously lived in group homes or other institutions, they may have been conditioned to follow directions from others without regard to their best interests or safety and may have a history of mistreatment and abuse by the time they enter a correctional facility.25
Past traumatic experiences condition some developmentally disabled men and women to expect abuse and view submission as a requirement for survival. Prisoners in Kuskokwim Correctional Center in Bethel, Alaska, brutally assaulted a developmentally disabled inmate in his 40s and a much younger man. According to Sean Brown, the attorney who represented the men and who prevailed in a civil lawsuit against the department of corrections, “One of the [victims] had his eyebrows ripped off, was kicked and hit, and was sexually assaulted with a toilet plunger”—abuses that occurred not over the course of minutes or hours, but over 3 days.26
For men, women, and juveniles coping with serious mental illness, both the disease itself and the treatment can render them extremely vulnerable.27 Symptoms ranging from hallucinations and paranoia to anxiety and depression may make it difficult to build the kind of supportive social networks that could protect prisoners from sexual abuse.28 Psychotropic medications often have side effects, such as sleepiness, slowed reactions, uncontrolled movements, and withdrawal, that increase a person’s vulnerability as well.29 Moreover, medications are often dispensed in open areas of the facility during peak traffic periods, such as around meal times, effectively “outing” people with a mental illness.
Dumond told the Commission that “[j]ails and prisons in the United States have become the de facto psychiatric facilities of the 21st century,” housing more mentally ill individuals than public and private psychological facilities combined.30 The data back up this assertion: a survey of prisoners in 2006 suggests that more than half of all individuals incarcerated in State prisons suffer from some form of mental health problem and that the rate in local jails is even higher.31
The report also recognized that special measures must be in place to ensure that prisoners with disabilities are aware of their right to be protected:
The Commission’s standard requires correctional facilities to inform individuals during the intake process about their right to be protected from sexual abuse and how to report suspicions or incidents of abuse and, soon thereafter, to engage prisoners in a detailed, interactive educational session. Facilities have an obligation to convey information in formats accessible to all prisoners, including those who speak a language other than English; have limited English proficiency; are deaf, visually impaired, or otherwise disabled; or who have limited reading skills.
The full report is available at http://nprec.us/publication/report/
Tags: Institutional abuse, intellectual disability, Sex offenders, sexual assault
