Sexual Assaults in Prison Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Sexual Assaults in Prison - Essay Example Even though the rate of imprisonment has increased over the years, most penal settings operate beyond the rated capacities. These lead to the crisis of overcapacity, limited resources and understaffing complications. Sexual assault in prisons has devastating psychological, social, and physical impacts on victims’ welfare. In most cases, the effects of sexual assault are exaggerated by captivity. In some instances, the affected persons face consistent infliction of fear, helplessness, physical assault as well as psychological trauma. The in-house problems in incarcerated centers are at times answerable to increased cases of sexual assaults in the penitentiary (Dumond, 2002). Sexual assaults have long term impacts on individual future growth and development. In addition to psychosomatic and physical harm, prisoners also face the peril of sexually transmitted diseases, depression, medical injuries, stigmatization, labeling, reduced social status, suicidal motivations, post-trauma disorders and reduction in individual esteem and social status. As a result, prisoners, jail administrators and clinicians ought to be aware of the increased cases of psychological and physical sexual acts and cases of victimization. Prison health practitioners should work hand in hand with the administrative staff and security to manage cases of sexual assaults and the subsequent intellectual, psychological and health conditions. Inmates are reported to have the highest level of sexual activity risks, high vulnerability to contagious diseases and highest rate of drug abuse. The recent decades have rising cases of sexual assaults and misconducts on female and male inmates by prison staffs. However, not all staffs are involved in these devastating acts. Cases of sexual assault by the staff members on the inmate are sometime accelerated by lack of a well defined