“If there are fewer staff dealing with greater numbers of prisoners then positive relationships are bound to suffer. Staff will spend less time with individual prisoners and prisoners will spend more time locked up in their cells. Forcing prisoners to share two to a cell is also going to increase the risk of sexual assault, as it increases the opportunity for abuse to take place out of sight of prison staff,” Atkinson said.
The comments come as a report by the independent Commission on Sex in Prison, carried out by the Howard League, found that instances of rape and sexual abuse of prisoners are at their highest levels since 2005. Between 850 and 1,650 inmates in England and Wales have been subjected to sexual assault, according to the research.
Atkinson explained that that key to reducing “coercive sex” and assault was to maintain proper staffing levels and avoid overcrowding.
“One of the key points raised in the briefing on coercive sex was that good staff prisoner relationships are fundamental in preventing sexual abuse. Staff shortages and overcrowding can undermine professional relationships and put prisoners at risk,” she said.
The Howard League would welcome better training for staff to enable them to recognize genuine complaints of sexual assault, Atkinson told Sputnik.
However, while training is important, “overcrowding and overstretched staff will undermine the potential benefits if staff are unable to build good relationships with prisoners,” she said, adding that the size of the prison is also an issue.
The Commission report is the first major review of rape, sexual assault and coercive sex in prisons in England and Wales ever carried out.
In the northern half of the United Kingdom, the extent of sexual abuse in Scotland’s 17 prison establishments is not something the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) routinely gather central information on, Sputnik has learned.
“We take seriously any allegation of sexual assault and report it to the appropriate authorities,” Sharon Sibbald of the Scottish Prison Service said.
Asked by Sputnik how many sexual assaults were recorded across all of Scotland’s prisons, Sibbald stated that “getting the figures is not as simple as hitting the click of a button. Each establishment (prison) across the organization records things independently. That is not information we hold readily available.”
“Sometimes things are recorded as alleged, others record what has taken place and as you might expect a lot of these things are not reported and if it’s not reported we won’t hold a figure on that,” Sibbald added.
Asked if the Scottish Prison Service board requested monitoring reports of sexual assault within the Scottish prison estate, Sibbald responded, “I think you are looking at very small numbers. I don’t think it is a huge problem for us. But it’s not something we don’t take seriously, we take it very seriously.”
The SPS spokeswoman added that a Freedom of Information request may provide answers on the scale of the problem in Scotland, but they had no plans to begin collating the data.
