Sexual Abuse Histories Among Incarcerated Older Adult Offenders: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

In the United States today, there are over 2.2 million incarcerated adults held in custody in U.S. state or federal prisons or local jails (Glaze, 2010). Prison facilities are oftentimes filled to capacity or in some cases, so overcrowded that conditions violate the constitutional rights of adults in prison (Brown v. Plata, 2011; Sabol & West, 2009; West & Sabol, 2008). Official statistics paint a contemporary portrait of the 1.5 million adult sentenced prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction who are mostly male (93%) and from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds including Black American (36%), Caucasian (31%), and Latino (20%)(West & Sabol, 2008). Black males continue to have the highest incarceration rates across all age categories compared to White or Latino males (Sabol & Couture, 2008). There is a growing number of older adults in both state and federal prisons, approaching nearly 5% of inmates 55 and older in custody of state prisons in 2007, and over 7% of inmates 56 and older in federal prison in 2009 (Cox & Lawrence, 2010; Sabol & Couture, 2008). This aging prisoner population, which is five times larger than in 1990, presents a significant public health challenge that the correctional system is not adequately equipped to address (Falter, 1999; Reimer, 2008). Moreover, the high prevalence of trauma among older adults in prison and psychological distress associated with trauma experiences raise serious concerns about the well-being of this population (Krause, 2004). Studies have shown that approximately 93% of juvenile and adult prisoners have had prior exposure to trauma, such as being a victim of and/or witness to sexual abuse (Harlow, 1999).