By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
The Torrance County Detention Facility led all the nation's local jails in sexual victimization, according to a report done by the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The department's special report was released in June and found the Torrance County Detention Facility recorded the highest overall rate of sexual victimization at 13.4 percent compared to a national average of 3.2 percent, said Allen J. Beck, principal author of the report and senior bureau statistical advisor.
Sexual victimization is considered by the report to be all types of sexual activity, including inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts and abusive sexual contact or unwanted touching. It also includes both willing and unwilling sexual activity with staff, according to a Justice Department press release.
A total of 282 correctional facilities nationally were sampled and the Estancia correctional facility was selected randomly.
The report was prompted by the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, which was enacted by Congress to protect individuals from prison rape and to analyze the incidence and effects of prison rape.
“(A total of) 13.4 percent of inmates reported one or more incidents of sexual victimization in the last six months or since their admission to the facility, whichever was shorter. Now that's based on a sample of inmates that was drawn randomly within the facility,” Beck said.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics is required by law to sample at least 10 percent of correctional facilities nationwide “and to compare facilities, identifying the three facilities with the highest rates and the two with the lowest rates. These will be required to testify before a prison rape review panel established under the act to explain why the rates are high and what steps they'll take” or conversely why their rates are low, Beck said.
He said he was unsure when that panel would meet, but speculated that it might be this fall.
“Obviously Torrance County comes out very high and may well be selected,” Beck said.
According to a press release from the jail, the Corrections Corporation of America, which owns and operates the facility, is reviewing the report “in the spirit for which it was intended — as one of a number of tools for correctional systems to utilize in the ongoing effort nationwide to reduce occurrences of sexual victimization in correctional facilities.”
“We feel it is important to note specifically that the report clearly states that use of this information for ranking or comparison purposes is not possible by the BJS' own acknowledgements due to the sampling error,” stated the release.
Even accounting for a margin of error because “not all inmates chose to participate,” the statistics were adjusted, Beck said.
“With or without the adjustments, Torrance County is still the highest,” Beck said.
“If you eliminate abusive sexual contact, it's the unwanted touching, grabbing, groping kinds of things. It's not the kinds of things that we usually think of with rape. If you limit it to the most serious stuff, then Torrance County still comes out the highest. If you eliminate the willing activity between inmates and staff, Torrance County still comes out the highest. So whatever measure you're looking at, it's clear that Torrance County stands out,” Beck said.
The detention facility has been audited by the CCA and by three outside agencies, the Office of the Federal Detention Trustee, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the American Correctional Association, the press release stated.
Officials with none of the three agencies could comment on the study, although an official with the American Correctional Association did confirm that the organization accredited the detention facility.
“We believe it is relevant to note that in each of these audits, auditors spoke with a cross section of the Torrance offender population and received no feedback similar to what was reported to the Bureau of Justice statistics,” said CCA's press release.
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