DOI: 10.3886/icpsr39149.v1
title: Survey of Sexual Victimization in Adult Correctional Facilities, United States, 2018
title: Version 1

description: The Survey of Sexual Victimization (SSV) is part of BJS's National Prison Rape Statistics Program, which gathers mandated data on the incidence and prevalence of sexual victimization in adult correctional and juvenile justice facilities, under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA; P.L. 108-79). This is an administrative data collection based on allegations of sexual victimization by other incarcerated adults or staff that are reported to authorities. The collection includes an enumeration of allegations and substantiated incidents reported to state prison systems; the federal prison system; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); the U.S. military; and a sample of jail jurisdictions, privately operated adult prisons and jails, and facilities in Indian country.
In 2018, correctional administrators reported 37,688 allegations of sexual victimization. This total contains all allegations of five types of victimization measured by the SSV - inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts, abusive sexual contacts, and sexual harassment as well as staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct and sexual harassment. Of those allegations, 2,873 were substantiated after investigation.
description: There were four survey form types that were sent to the correctional administrators in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) (SSV-1), state prison systems (SSV-2), local jail jurisdictions (SSV-3), private prison and jail facilities (SSV-4), jails in Indian country (SSV-4), and facilities operated by the U.S. military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) (SSV-4). Each respondent provided data on the number of reported allegations of sexual victimization for either their entire systems, as was the case for state prisons and the BOP, or for their facilities, as was the case for jails or other correctional facilities.
description: Variables capturing sexual victimization were divided between inmate-on-inmate and staff-on-inmate incidents. Incidents were categorized as nonconsensual sexual acts, abusive sexual contact, and sexual harassment. Variables asking whether or not various sexual acts are recorded by the facility, if they're substantiated, unsubstantiated, unfounded, ongoing investigations, and total acts are included. Average daily inmate populations of males, females, and total of all inmates are recorded, along with the facility type.
description: Initial sampling weights are stored in the <strong>SAMPLE_WGT</strong> variable. The nonresponse weights are stored in the <strong>NR_FACTOR</strong> variable. Final weights adjusting for facilities who did not respond within strata - calculated as the product of sampling weight, nonresponse weight, and active status indicated by a value of "1" - are included in the variable <strong>FINAL_WGT</strong>.
The label for the enumerated facility type or strata within the sampled types of facilities is contained in the variable <strong>STRAT</strong>.
description: Response Rates: All state departments of correction, the federal BOP, U.S. military facilities, and ICE facilities responded to the SSV. Of the active (facilities that were not closed or out of scope) private prisons sampled, 89% responded. Of the active public jails sampled, 82% responded. Of active private jails, 87% responded. Among tribal jails selected for the SSV, 56% responded.
description: A census was completed for state adult prisons systems, the federal BOP, military correctional facilities, and facilities operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE). Samples were collected of the four main other types of adult correctional facilities. A sample of 700 public jails was drawn from the frame of BJS's 2018 Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP). There were 5 total strata with the largest facilities in each state and any facilities with an average daily population of 1000 or more selected with certainty and the remaining three strata selected facilities using stratified random sampling. A sample of 15 private jails were also selected from the DCRP frame; a stratum of certainty units included facilities with an ADP of 1000 or more and a stratum of noncertainty units was selected using probability proportional to size (PPS) methods. There were 155 private prison facilities selected from an updated frame of the 2012 Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities (CCF). Facilities with an ADP of 587 or more were selected with certainty and the remaining non-certainty units were selected using PPS. A sample of 25 tribal jails were selected from BJS's Annual Survey of Jails in Indian Country. Tribal jails with an ADP of 84 or more were selected with certainty and the remaining 18 were selected using PPS.
<strong>Private Prisons:</strong> All facilities were first sorted by ADP and a pre-determined cut-off (ADP greater than or equal to 587) was used to determine certainties-due-to-size units. The facilities remaining in the frame at this point were sorted by region (i.e., Northeast, Midwest, South, or West), state, and ADP, and sampled systematically with probability proportional to size. 
<strong>Public Jails:</strong> Public jails were stratified into two certainty strata and three noncertainty strata. For the first stratum, the largest jail jurisdictions in 45 states and the District of Columbia were selected to meet the PREA requirement that at least one jail per state is selected each year. For the second stratum, all other jail jurisdictions with ADPs greater than or equal to 1,000 inmates were selected with certainty. The remaining jail jurisdictions on the frame were grouped into three strata. The Large ADP stratum included jails with ADP 281 to 999. The Medium ADP stratum included jails with ADP 92 to 280. The Small ADP stratum included jails with ADP 91 or smaller. The jail jurisdictions in each of these three strata were then sorted by region, state, and ADP and selected systematically.
<strong>Private Jails:</strong> Jails with an ADP of 1,000 or more were selected with certainty-due-to-size. The remaining private facilities were sorted by region, state, and ADP, and were systematically sampled with probability proportional to size. 
<strong>Indian Country Jails:</strong> Facilities were sampled with certainty due to a pre-determined ADP cut-off (ADP greater than or equal to 104). The remaining facilities on the frame were sorted by state and ADP then sampled with probability proportionate to size. Facilities in Indian country housing exclusively juveniles were excluded from the adult sample.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Survey of Sexual Victimization in Adult Correctional Facilities, United States, 2018
description: All adult correctional facilities in the United States. Smallest Geographic Unit: State
description: mail questionnaire; web-based surveyNames of individual facilities are not included for analysis. Only names of consolidated systems (i.e., state Departments of Correction and the Federal Bureau of Prisons) are retained on the file.