User:Zinger598/sandbox

Sexual abuse and rape can happen to all demographic groups within the prison system, but those belonging the LGBT community or people with mental illness are more heavily targeted (McFarlane).  The purpose of the act was to provide research and gather statistics for the rate of prison rape in all governmental levels of the prison system and it is supposed “to provide information, resources, recommendations and funding to protect individuals from prison rape” (Prison Rape Elimination Act, 2003).  Although the primary focus was to combat all prisoner rape and sexual assault, the PREA does not successfully protect prisoners, especially those within minority groups like women and the LGBT community (Arkles). Instead, PREA gives correctional officers and facility operators the ability to punish inmates for engaging in any sexual behavior, including consensual activity (Palacios). As a result, punishment for all sexual acts “[discourages] prisoners from reporting sexual violence” (Palacios).  Although this is true, the PREA and new national standards for prison rape prevention, detection, and response is showing an increasing in the number of reported allegations of sexual victimization (Sexual Victimization Reported By Adult Correctional Authorities). Of the new cases reported in 2015, 58% of them were inmate-inmate cases, while 42% of them were staff-inmate cases (Sexual Victimization Reported By Adult Correctional Authorities). From 2013-2015, there were about “15,875 allegations of inmate-on-inmate sexual harassment”, but only about 16% of the allegations were proven and found to be true based on investigations (Sexual Victimization Reported By Adult Correctional Authorities).