Survey of Sexual Victimization in Adult Correctional Facilities, United States, 2018

The Survey of Sexual Victimization (SSV) is part of BJS's National Prison Rape Statistics Program, which gathers mandated data on the incidence and prevalence of sexual victimization in adult correctional and juvenile justice facilities, under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA; P.L. 108-79). This is an administrative data collection based on allegations of sexual victimization by other incarcerated adults or staff that are reported to authorities. The collection includes an enumeration of allegations and substantiated incidents reported to state prison systems; the federal prison system; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the U.S. military; and a sample of jail jurisdictions, privately operated adult prisons and jails, and facilities in Indian country.

In 2018, correctional administrators reported 37,688 allegations of sexual victimization. This total contains all allegations of five types of victimization measured by the SSV - inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts, abusive sexual contacts, and sexual harassment as well as staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. Of those allegations, 2,873 were substantiated after investigation.