This project, conducted by Janet I Warren, DSW, Ann Loper, PhD, and Shelly Jackson, PhD of the University of Virginia, was funded by the National Institute of Justice with funding was made available through the Prison Rape Elimination Act passed by the US Congress 2003.
The goal of the study is to identify individual risk markers as well as factors in the prison environment that might be ameliorated or managed with the goal being to reduce this real and perceived threat of sexual violence among incarcerated men and women.
This study addresses this problem from varying but interrelated perspectives.
- What is the level of fear expressed by inmates about sexual violence and what factors do they identify as making particular inmates more vulnerable to victimization?
- What individual, group and environmental factors most consistently define inmates who have been sexually victimized or who have victimized others?
- Are the typologies of rape behavior identified in the community relevant to understanding different types of rape in prison?
- Is the reactive versus instrumental paradigm of violence relevant to understanding institutionally based sexual violence?
- Do risk factors for sexual violence differ from those that are predictive of other forms of violent behavior in prison?
- Do the dominant dynamic risk factors for sexual violence differ for men and women?
- What are the effects of sexual violence in prison both for the individual and for the group and does it find further expression in other forms of aggression?
- How might individual, group, and environmental risk factors be optimally integrated into a classification system that would facilitate early detection and intervention.
Data collection has included self-report surveys of inmates and correctional staff; structured interviews of victims and perpetrators; file reviews of criminological and institutional behavior of inmates; and institutional assessments of relevant factors particular to each prison.
For more information concerning the study contact Janet I. Warren at jiw(at)virginia.edu.