Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

men or boys in custodial settings. Overall, female sex offenders receive less harsh sanctions thanmale sex offenders, they are even less likely to be prosecuted or punished when the victim ismale and in custody.This article describes female correctional staff’s entry and experience in the corrections milieuand how gender, race, class and mass incarceration has complicated their experiences and impactin the corrections environment. Second, the article examines research on the prevalence ofsexual abuse committed by female correctional workers. Finally, the article makes concretepolicy suggestions for addressing abuse in custody by female correctional workers.Does Research on Prison Rape Fail to Address Women within the German PenalSystem?Thomas Barth, JVKB Berlin, Germany (Thomas.Barth@jvkb.berlin.de)Does research on prison rape fail to address women within the German penal system? There arevery few existing international studies that address sexual misconduct of female prisoners, andnone at all about conditions of incarcerated women within the German penal system. Some of therecent surveys on female prisoners indicate the existence of violence against women, rangingfrom sexual harassment to sexual assault. The female prison population in Germany rose by 91.2percent between 1995 and 2006. In 2011, 5.6 percent of the German prison population (68,099 intotal) were women. Thus, the number of incarcerated women at risk of sexual victimization maybe substantial. Women prisoners have a history of sexual abuse almost five times as often as thegeneral population. Nearly a fifth of all incarcerated women are convicted of drug-relatedoffences, which suggests that many of these inmates have a history of drug abuse, some of whichmay be attributable to intravenous drug use that can lead to contraction of infectious diseases likehepatitis and HIV. Additionally, a substantial percentage of incarcerated women suffer frompsychiatric illnesses and are therefore even more susceptible to a wide spectrum of sexuallyharmful behaviours ranging from harassment to assault (including strip searches) to rape.Preliminary results of a survey addressing sexuality and sexual victimization in a women’scorrectional facility in Berlin will be presented.Perceptions of Sexual Safety in US Women’s Jails and PrisonsBarbara Owen, California State University, Fresno (barbarao@csufresno.edu)James Wells, Eastern Kentucky University (James.Wells@eku.edu)This presentation describes the context of sexual violence and sexual safety in a large nationalsample of women incarcerated in US prisons and jails. An earlier study established that violencein women’s correctional facilities was markedly gendered and nested within a constellation ofoverlapping individual, relational, institutional, and societal factors. We learned that violence156