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Accomplishing the Difficult but Not Impossible: Collecting Self-Report Data on Inmate-on-Inmate Sexual Assault in Prison

¹ University of California, Irvine
² Penn State University, Harrisburg
³ University of Missouri, St. Louis

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jenness{at}uci.edu.

	Abstract

The Prison Rape elimination act (PRea) increases opportunities for scholars to conduct research in carceral settings to determine the prevalence and contours of sexual assault. However, researchers face many challenges, including working cooperatively with state agencies while maintaining independence; gaining access to prisons and prisoners; securing necessary institutional approvals; and collecting generalizable data on a highly sensitive topic, sexual assault in prisons. This article reports our responses to these challenges in a study of inmate-on-inmate sexual assault in California. We describe our research procedures and provide an assessment of interviewer effects and threats to the generalizability of our sample. Our experience should be instructive to other researchers undertaking similar efforts at a moment in time in which others have rightfully decried the decline of in-prison research.

First published on July 22, 2009
Criminal Justice Policy Review 2009, doi:10.1177/0887403409341451


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