It is a well-known fact that rape happens in prison. There are always debates about the numbers as the majority of incidents are never reported. Whenever we think about rape, we immediately think of a man raping a woman. However, men can also be raped.
Poor-taste jokes are often shared about not dropping the soap in the shower rooms. However, there is nothing to be light-hearted or joke about when it comes to rape and sexual assault in prison. Sexual assaults, including a number of very violent rapes, have been happening in our overcrowded and understaffed prisons for years.
In this blog, I am going to concentrate on the rape of males in the UK prison settings. It is possible for women in UK prisons to be raped. This can be by any male who has access to prisoners.
According to a UK police website, rape is when a person intentionally penetrates another’s vagina, anus or mouth with a penis, without the other person’s consent. Assault by penetration is when a person penetrates another person’s vagina or anus with any part of the body other than a penis, or by using an object, without the person’s consent. It is the former that will be explored in this blog.
Adult male prisoners in the United Kingdom are raped and sexually assaulted within the system, and often the abuse is not always acknowledged, nor are records kept of sexual offences committed against prisoners.
In many cases in recent years, when a prisoner makes an allegation of sexual abuse/rape, they often end up being removed from the prison they were in, and the abuser stays behind, leaving the ‘victim’ even more traumatised by the whole event.
In 2010, the figure for assaults in English and Welsh jails was 137, but by 2015 the total had more than doubled to 300. There are more than 80, 000 males held in prisons in the UK. This makes the amount of reported male sexual assaults in custody relatively small. This means that it only occurs in around 0.3% of males in the prison population. However, there is a lack of reporting of rapes and assaults in male prisons.
There appears to be a devaluation of male rape which is evident in general society and law enforcement. It was only 26 years ago, in 1994, that the rape of males was even classified as “rape.” Before this, it was seen as “non-consensual buggery” and had a maximum ten-year sentence, compared to a maximum of a life sentence for rape.
Unfortunately, rape is still often seen as an issue for women and women alone despite changes in the law. There are many support groups and support resources for women. However, there are less available for men and even less for men who have been raped in prison.
There are a number of studies that have found male rape in prison is under-reported much more than male rape amongst the general public. Male rapes that occur in prison are rarely investigated or prosecuted. When a complaint is made in prison, the only action taken is to move the victim to another prison.
Around 2015, there were multiple headlines about sexual abuse in prisons and the need to rectify this issue. These were the media’s reaction to the latest report by the Commission on Sex in Prison, set up by the Howard League for Penal Reform and the first-ever independent review of sex inside prisons in England and Wales.
Lovisa Stannow of Just Detention International said: “We have seen first-hand the importance of serious, nationwide research to determine the prevalence and dynamics of sexual abuse in detention. With reliable data in hand, we have managed to move away from denial and toward a recognition that prisoner rape is a nationwide crisis.”
Research by the Howard League for Penal Reform found a range of failings within prisons. Prisoners said that rape and sex happened out of necessity. It is important to highlight that sexual activity does occur inside prison between inmates with consent.
Dr Alisa Stevens, a lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton who conducted interviews for the Sex in Prison report, said a national survey of serving and former prisoners were needed to better understand the scale of consensual and coercive sex in prison.
During interviews, one heterosexual former inmate explained how he had sex with gay or bisexual prisoners to satisfy his sexual needs and had continued seeing girls when he was released.
He said: “I’m completely straight; what happened then was just about having my sexual needs met, in a particular time and place, where I couldn’t get [heterosexual] sex.”
However, this report also found that inmates would be forced to offer ‘sexual favours’ in Payment of gambling or drug addiction and debts. It was found that vulnerable inmates who were socially isolated or lacked financial support from friend’s ort family outside of prison were targeted. Or ‘groomed’ for sex.
Three male interviewees told of how they had been raped in prison and three others had been threatened with rape by fellow inmates. One interviewee had been raped five times in a cell and required medical treatment.
But he refrained from making a formal complaint in fear of gaining a reputation as a “grass” and as a prisoner serving a long-term sentence, fellow inmates would “mark his cards” for the remainder of his time inside and would increase his chances of being raped again.
During this research, I came across a blog written by an inmate while he was incarcerated. He wrote in his blog:
I know from personal experience that a great many sexual assaults – ranging from an indecent grope right through to full-scale rape (both anal and oral) – are often not documented, even when they are reported to prison staff. I know for an absolute fact that there are no records of the sexual assault I experienced in August 2013, because I have seen my own prison security records and it is not mentioned at all.
I could list literally dozens of similar cases, including a particularly brutal rape that I believe led one young prisoner to hang himself in despair back in 2012. I’ve seen both the unpublished report into his death prepared the Prison and Probation Ombudsman, as well as the Coroner’s inquest findings and the entire issue of the sexual assault has been whitewashed out of existence. In his case, the suicide was attributed to depression, even though I know that two wing governors knew the real reasons he took such a desperate course of action to evade further attacks from the alleged rapist. I know because we discussed the issue at length behind closed doors months before the inquest.
As I’ve previously mentioned in a post on this blog, I’ve witnessed a group of heterosexual cons debating whether to accept an offer of oral sex to clear a tobacco debt. Opinion was mixed, but no-one really expressed much outrage over the suggestion.
All of the research and headlines I found on the issue of male rape date from 2015 or earlier. It appears as though the report that was conducted by Howard League for Penal Reform created a wave and calls for change that did not last.
We are placing men in prison because of the crimes they committed. Time spent in prison is aimed at being a combination of rehabilitation and punishment. It is not so that these men can become victims of further crimes. We have a moral duty to protect those in prison, regardless of their offence. Nobody – regardless of age, gender, or criminal history, deserves to be raped.
