Source: San Diego Union Tribune

STUDY: JAIL INMATES OFTEN PRIOR VICTIMS

Many report abuse, poverty, joblessness

WASHINGTON -- Forty-eight percent of female inmates and 13 percent of jailed
men have been abused sexually or physically at least once in their lives,
according to a profile released yesterday of the nation's local jail
inmates.

More than a quarter of the women -- 27 percent -- and 3 percent of men said
the abuse included rape. Large numbers of the inmates grew up in
single-parent homes, were children of dissolute parents or spent at least
part of their childhood in homes on welfare or in public housing. More than
a third -- 36 percent -- said they were unemployed before their most recent
arrest.

The study by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics paints
pictures of broken lives and gives clues to why more than half a million
people ran afoul of local authorities last year.

"The tragedy is that people who have been victimized often become
victimizers themselves," said Eric E. Sterling, president of the
Washington-based Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. "It's a cycle we could
break, but it involves some expense. As a society, we haven't put our
resources there."

Another expert, Raymond Bell of Pennsylvania's Lehigh University, said the
study probably understates the frequency of inmates who have been abused.
"One of the things coming out in the juvenile courts is more and more boys
are reporting sexual abuse and incest in ways that 10 years ago they
weren't," Bell said. "It's just the tip of the iceberg."

In the latest study, the bureau said 20 percent of inmates were seeking
work, 16 percent were not looking, and "almost half reported income of less
than $600 a month during the month before their arrest."

Sterling said misbehaving children simply have fewer opportunities for help
in poor families.

"Poverty often means that kids in trouble are not able to get therapy or
counseling," he said.

By mid-1997, 567,079 inmates were lodged in the nation's 3,328 local jails,
up 43 percent from 395,554 in mid-1989. Unlike prisons, jails are run by
local governments. They hold convicts awaiting sentencing and people serving
sentences of a year or less.

The report's findings were extrapolated from a survey of more than 6,000
randomly selected inmates from 431 jails.

About 90 percent of the inmates were male, and 10 percent were female.
Forty-one percent were black, 37 percent white, 19 percent Hispanic and 3
percent were from other groups, including Asians, Pacific islanders and
American Indians.

Those figures show minorities make up a disproportionate share of inmates.
The Census Bureau reports that blacks make up 12.7 percent of the nation's
population, Hispanics 11 percent. The other groups are less than 5 percent.

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Tom Murlowski Associate Director/Webmaster The November Coalition 5150
Balboa Arms Drive #E14 San Diego, CA 92117 E-mail: tom@november.org Web:
http://www.november.org

"If at first you don't succeed, you're not using a big enough hammer."