Speaker: Catherine Jacquet, Department of History, Louisiana State University

Abstract: »Prior to the mid-1990s, there were no scholarly studies or research on sexual abuse in women’s prisons. Although incarcerated women victims and their allies had organized, protested, and pursued legal avenues in their defense, no data or research existed that spoke to the incidence and pervasiveness of sexual harm in women’s carceral facilities anywhere in the nation. This paper will discuss the two first studies to examine incarcerated women’s experience with sexual abuse behind bars. First, in 1994, University of South Dakota psychologist Cindy Struckman-Johnson surveyed all the prisons in Nebraska and found that 7.7% of prisoners in women’s institutions were being “pressured or forced to have sexual contact against their will while incarcerated.” These groundbreaking research findings were published in the Journal of Sex Research in 1996. Also that year, the government watchdog group Human Rights Watch published their report All Too Familiar: Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons. A landmark study, All Too Familiar examined six state prison systems over a 2 ½ year period. This paper will consider the context and impact of these pioneer studies and consider the role of data in advocating for change.« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of the Americas: History of the United States | Prison: Incarceration of women / Women's prisons in the United States | Sex and the law: Prison rape / Prison rape in the United States