The Bureau of Justice Statistics has published a report on sexual victimization in local jails. The data for the 2007 National Inmate Survey (NIS) was collected from a sample of 40,419 inmates between April and December, and surveyed 282 local jails.

Highlights:

• About 1.6% of inmates (12,100, nationwide) reported an incident involving another inmate, and 2.0% (15,200) reported an incident involving staff.
• Inmate-on-inmate victimization occurred most often in the victim's cell (56%); staff-on-inmate victimization occurred in a closet, office, or other locked room (47%).
• An estimated 5.1% of female inmates, compared to 2.9% of male inmates, said they had experienced one or more incidents of sexual victimization.

This data was collected as required by the the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (P.L.-108-79).