This report fulfills the mandate established by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA; P.L. 108-79) that requires the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to produce a report, not later than June 30 of each year, on its activities to collect data on prison rape. The report is the twelfth in a series that began in 2011. It describes BJS’s data collection and developmental activities during 2021 and 2022 and new statistical findings to measure the incidence and prevalence of rape and sexual assault in adult correctional and juvenile justice facilities, including through the National Survey of Youth in Custody, the National Inmate Survey, and the Survey of Sexual Victimization. Each of these collections is an independent effort, and they are not directly comparable.
Highlights:
- Among the National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC) data collection activities—
- The Office of Justice Programs’ Review Panel on Prison Rape held public hearings on May 17-18, 2022, in response to Sexual Victimization Reported by Youth in Juvenile Facilities, 2018 (NCJ 253042, BJS, December 2019).
- From July 2021 to June 2022, BJS continued to analyze the NSYC-3 data, including facility characteristics related to sexual victimization of youth in custody and drug and alcohol use and abuse by the youth prior to entering custody.
- Among the National Inmate Survey data collection activities—
- BJS temporarily suspended plans for data collection, due to the challenges that correctional facilities have faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic that made it infeasible to survey prisoners and jail inmates.
- BJS monitored COVID-19 conditions to ensure data collection can begin as soon as practicable, which is tentatively planned for 2023.
- Among the Survey of Sexual Victimization (SSV) data collection activities—
- In August 2021, BJS received approval from the OMB to conduct the SSV through August 2024. Data collection for the 2020 reference year was initiated in 2021 and completed in April 2022.
- Data collection for the 2021 reference year will begin in midsummer of 2022 and is expected to be completed by early spring of 2023. BJS will continue working to enhance and improve the SSV data collection.