Sexual Victimization in Prisons Reported by Inmates, 2023-24

• NCJ Number: 310544
• Author(s): Michael B. Field, BJS Statistician; Amy D. Lauger, BJS Statistician; Shelby Kottke-Weaver, PhD, Former BJS Statistician
• Date Published: December 2025
• Publication Series: PREA Publications
• Publication Type: Publication

Description

This report presents findings from the fourth National Inmate Survey (NIS-4) in state and federal prisons as part of BJS’s National Prison Rape Statistics Program, which collects allegations of sexual victimization directly from victims. It provides estimates of sexual victimization in prisons, provides trend data from 2011-12 to 2023-24, and fulfills the requirement under PREA to provide a list of prisons according to their prevalence of sexual victimization.

Highlights

• The overall rate of sexual victimization reported by adult prison inmates in 2023–24 was 4.1%.
• In 2023–24, 2.3% of adult inmates reported sexual victimization by another inmate and 2.2% reported sexual victimization by facility staff.
• Seventeen prisons were identified as high-rate facilities based on their rates of overall sexual victimization in 2023–24.
• In 2023–24, nine prisons were identified as high-rate facilities for inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, seven were identified as high-rate facilities for staff-on-inmate sexual victimization, and two were identified as high-rate facilities for both types of sexual victimization.