ABSTRACT
In 2004, just after the passage of PREA, we undertook a project to develop a risk classification scheme for a range of sexual behavior exhibited by male and female inmates while incarcerated. The design of our study was unique in three specific ways. First, the exploratory research sought for the first time to apply empirically validated static and dynamic risk markers for violence in the community to sexual predation and victimization in prisons. Second, the study was designed to allow a direct comparison of male and female inmates across a range of domains. Finally, our study assessed a range of sexual behaviors as outcome measures in our study. These included the experience of coerced sexuality while imprisoned as either a perpetrator (predatory sex) or a victim (victimized sex), involvement in sexual exchanges that were based on the bartering of goods or protection (bartered sex), and involvement in consensual sex (consensual sex) that occurred with other inmates, visitors/others, and/or prison staff. We also included the experience of any-sex, which was defined as the experience of predatory, victimized, bartered, or consensual sex while incarcerated. This approach enabled a comparison of sexual to asexual inmates.
