By Ellen Wulfhorst
Reuters
WASHINGTON — Nearly 9,000 incidents of sexual victimization against inmates in U.S. prisons and jails were reported in 2011, with roughly half of them involving corrections staff, according to a report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The number of incidents showed a “significant increase” over about 8,400 incidents reported in 2010 and 7,855 reported in 2009, it said. The year 2011 was the most recent cited in the bureau study, published on Thursday.
The number has been rising in each of the last five years, said the study, which defined sexual victimization as including non-consensual acts, abusive touching, threats, indecent exposure and harassment.
Full story: Half of U.S. prison sex crimes involve staff toward inmates: fed study