Date of Graduation

5-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Political Science

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Political Science

Advisor/Mentor

Schreckhise, William D.

Committee Member

Pryor Sparks, Leigh

Second Committee Member

Kerr, Brink III

Third Committee Member

Potra, Adriana

Abstract

This paper compares the reported statistics of staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct allegations in privately and federally operated correctional facilities. The federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) was first created with the goal of protecting public safety and promoting rehabilitation for criminal offenders humanely. As decades have passed, and the support for the validity of this mission has wavered, the federal government has implemented oversight and remedial programs to report on the misconduct that is evident in prison management in an attempt to curb these incidents. Previous research in this field highlights the waning reliability of institutional indicators to the success of correctional facilities in purporting the BOP’s founding mission. Prison Rape Elimination Act audits have become the leading index in determining the efficacy of a prison administrations’ ability to prevent sexual misconduct within their facilities. The decreasing dependability of checks against abuse of power by correctional employees signals that the reliability of the current indicators needs to be examined. The purpose of this research is two-fold. The first, to determine whether inmates are at a higher risk of sexual victimization at the hands of correctional staff in private or public prisons. The second is to determine whether PREA standard evaluations are reliable indicators of whether a facility is likely to put an inmate at a higher risk of sexual victimization by correctional staff.

Keywords

Sexual Abuse; Sexual Harassment; Staff Misconduct; Incarceration; Prison Contracts

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