The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA; Public Law 108-79) requires the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to carry out a comprehensive statistical review and analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape for each calendar year. BJS’s review must include, but is not limited to, the identification of the common characteristics of both victims and perpetrators of prison rape; and prisons and prison systems with a high incidence of prison rape. Analysis must—
- be based on a random sample, or other scientifically appropriate sample, of not less than 10% of all federal, state, and county prisons, and a representative sample of municipal prisons; and include at least one prison from each state
- use surveys and other statistical studies of current and former inmates from a representative sample of federal, state, county, and municipal prisons; and ensure the confidentiality of each survey participant
- provide a list of institutions in the sample, separated into each category and ranked according to the incidence of prison rape in each institution; and provide a list of any prisons in the sample that did not cooperate with the survey.
PREA applies to all correctional facilities, including prisons, jails, juvenile facilities, military and Indian country facilities, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities. Due to the sensitive nature of violent victimization and potential reluctance to report sexual assault, estimates of the prevalence of such acts do not rely on a single measure. Thus, BJS developed the National Prison Rape Statistics Program (NPRSP), a series designed to collect multiple measures of the incidence and prevalence of sexual assault. No data collection existed that could be used to fully respond to the requirements in PREA. BJS, with the aid of correctional practitioners, researchers, and special interest groups, developed, tested, and revised each collection prior to full national implementation. For these reasons, the data collections have been rolled out consecutively rather than concurrently, and each collection is in a different stage of implementation.
NPRSP includes four separate data collection efforts: the Survey of Sexual Victimization (SSV), the National Inmate Survey (NIS), the National Survey of Youth in Custody (NSYC), and the National Former Prisoner Survey (NFPS). Each of these collections is an independent effort and, while not directly comparable, provides various measures of the prevalence and characteristics of sexual assault in correctional facilities. Incidents reported to or observed by correctional or medical officials collected in the SSV administrative records survey may be an underrepresentation of actual incidents. Allegations made anonymously by inmates and youth in the NIS, NSYC, and NFPS may be an overrepresentation of actual incidents, although it is possible this overreporting is offset by some victims who, despite the protocols enacted to assure confidentiality and encourage reporting, remain fearful of retribution or ridicule and fail to report sexual victimization. For additional information, see the corrections data collections.