Sexual Violence Among Male Inmates

Inmate misconduct has been a widely studied topic for many decades. General studies of misconduct have found that there are certain factors that contribute to misconduct, including age, gender, sentence length, and facility type. Few studies, however, have examined the factors predicting sexual offenses in a prison conduct. Although many studies of victims of sexual offenses in prison have been conducted, there is a lack of studies examining the perpetrators of prison sexual violence. The current study attempted to expand this body of literature by examining the correlates of sexual misconduct among a sample of male inmates incarcerated in the state of North Carolina during 2010. Deprivation and importation theories of inmate behavior were used to guide the analysis, and measures of deprivation and importation factors were both included in the analytical models. Findings indicate that Black, nonmarried, younger inmates, who had more previous incarcerations and had been incarcerated longer, had greater odds of having a sexual infraction. Additional findings, as well as policy implications, are discussed.