Another outcome of prison rape is suicide. Researchers have found that suicide is the leading cause of death behind bars. Sexual harassment is the leading cause of prisoner suicide. Yet another consequence is disease. Hepatitis-C and AIDS spread by prisoner rape can be a death sentence.
Severe psychosis is the most common outcome of prisoner rape.
Sexual assault can often break a prisoner's spirit without even breaking his skin, resulting in shame, rage and all the actions related to these emotions. Researchers have found that it takes an average of ten years for a woman to heal from rape and that many male rape survivors never heal because of pressures placed on men that are only beginning to be understood. The rape of male prisoners is especially destructive in that they are usually gang-raped. In the advanced stages of rape trauma syndrome, a survivor's mood often swings between deep depression and rage. Prisoner rape may be the quickest, most cost-effective way of producing a sociopath or, in Richard Allen Davis's case, a psychopath.