Examining Differences in Attitudes About Sexual Victimization Among a Sample of Jail Officers

• Author: Jodi Lane,Carrie L. Cook
• Published date: 01 June 2012
• Date: 01 June 2012
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016812436548
• Subject Matter: Articles

Examining Differences in

Attitudes About Sexual

Victimization Among a

Sample of Jail Officers: The

Importance of Officer Gender

and Perceived Inmate

Characteristics

Carrie L. Cook

1

and Jodi Lane

2

Abstract

The current study examined attitudes about inmate-on-inmate sexual assault among a sample of cor-

rectional officers. The study uniquely surveyed a jail sample of correctional officers, a context that

has been ignored in the research on correctional officer perceptions of sexual victimization. The

study measured officer attitudes toward victim blaming, credibility of inmates who report sexual

assault, definitions of sexual assault, and willingness to respond to assault incidents. Additionally, the

study examined gender differences in attitudes toward victimization and attitudes toward varying

types of inmates. Overall, correctional officers assigned varying levels of blame and credibility to

inmates who report sexual assault. Male and female officers also had significantly different attitudes

about victim blaming and credibility of inmates. In addition, the sample held diverse views of what

constitutes sexual assault and their preferred responses to the issue of sexual victimization. Impli-

cations for correctional policy, training, and avenues for continued research are discussed.

Keywords

correctional officers, perceptions of victims, sexual assault in correctional institutions

Sexual assault in correctional institutions is not a new phenomena, yet legal and correctional policy

is only recently addressing the issue. Little consensus exists about the nature of this problem. The

judicial declaration that sexual assault in correctional institutions is a violation of the eighth

1

Department of Government and Sociology, Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville, GA, USA

2

Department of Sociology and Criminology & Law, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Carrie L. Cook, Department of Government and Sociology, Georgia College & State University, Campus Box 18, Mill-

edgeville, GA 31061, USA

Email: carrie.cook@gcsu.edu

Criminal Justice Review

37(2) 191-213

ª2012 Georgia State University

Reprints and permission:

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DOI: 10.1177/0734016812436548

http://cjr.sagepub.com

amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment is rather recent (Farmer v. Brennan,

1994). The passage of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) increased attention to the issue

of sexual assault in correctional institutions. The law aims to establish national standards to address

and prevent the occurrence of sexual assault in prisons and jails; one requirement of PREA is to

increase data collection about the prevalence of these incidents (Beck, Harrison, & Adams, 2007;

S. Res. 1435, 2003).

Political attention does not immediately extend beyond policy to impact practice, however, and

PREA recognizes that officers in correctional institutions have, in general, been insufficiently

trained to properly prevent and address incidents of sexual assault (S. Res. 1435, 2003). Yet, the

nature of the correctional officer profession places them in a unique position to be equipped with

information about inmate relationships and interactions. Although the foundation of the relationship

between inmates and officers is based on the adversarial notion of the keepers and the kept, the pro-

fessionalization of the correctional officer job in recent decades recognizes a broader duty of care

toward inmates (Klofas & Toch, 1982; Toch & Klofas, 1982; Whitehead, Linquist, & Klofas,

1987). It seems reasonable, then, that officers are in a position to prevent and respond to inmate-

on-inmate sexual assault because of their access to and interaction with inmates.

Generally, the social science research on this issue is recent and scarce. Given the position of offi-

cers as the staff members most privy to understanding the culture of these types of incidents in insti-

tutions, it issurprising that there are fewstudies that evaluate their perspectives aboutthe issue. To our

knowledge, there is very little literature that explores how staff in correctional institutions view and

react to inmate-on-inmate sexual assault in correctional institutions. The research that does exist sug-

gests a lack of clarityfrom the officer perspective about whether sexual incidentsbetween inmates are

consensual or coerced (Eigenberg, 1989; National Institute of Corrections & The MossGroup, 2006).

Additionally, research about this problem has primarily been conducted in state prisons, ignoring the

context of jails. The purpose of this study is to address this deficiency by examining how jail correc-

tional officers perceive victimization in correctional facilities. Specifically, the study gauges officer

attitudes about victim blaming, the credibility of inmates who report victimization, the definition of

rape, and their own willingness to respond to sexual victimization. Another purpose of the study is

to determine whether attitudes about victimization in correctional facilities differ across gender.

Review of Prior Research

The Prevalence of Inmate-on-Inmate Sexual Assault

A major emphasis of PREA is data collection for the purpose of understanding the prevalence of

sexual assault in correctional institutions (S. Res. 1435, 2003). The National Inmate Survey is a data

collection effort undertaken by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) that supports the data collection

mandate of PREA. The second National Inmate Survey was conducted with over 80,000 participat-

ing inmates at 167 prisons, 286 jails, and 10 federal detention facilities nationwide (Beck, Harrison,

Berzofsky, Caspar, & Krebs, 2010). The survey indicates that between 2008 and 2009, about

3%(n¼24,000) of jail inmates and as many as 4.4%(n¼64,500) of prison inmates experienced

sexual victimization. About half in both samples reported being victimized by other inmates

(Beck et al., 2010).

The Survey of Sexual Violence is also overseen by BJS and is administered to correctional

authorities nationwide to gauge official estimates of sexual victimization in correctional institutions.

The National Inmate Survey and the Survey of Sexual Violence both identify the risk of inmate-on-

inmate sexual victimization as disproportionately higher across particular contexts and for particular

inmates. They find that about a fifth of inmate-on-inmate sexual assault victimizations in jails

occurred within 24 hours of admission and were more likely to have occurred in the evening or early

192 Criminal Justice Review 37(2)