Prison Rape Panel

From CrimProf quoting signsonsandiego.com:

Spurred by a 2003 federal law, the U.S. Department of Justice's new Review Panel on Prison Rape began two days of hearings Tuesday at California's Folsom Prison to learn what the country's largest state prison system is doing about the problem.

It is the start of a month long national effort to find how many prison inmates are victims of sexual assault and how to deter the attacks.

Reports of assaults “may be just the tip of the iceberg. We haven't a clue,” said McFarland, who also directs the Justice Department's Task Force for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

Congress, in passing the federal rape law, cited estimates that 13 percent of inmates are assaulted nationwide. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, in a 1997 survey, put the incidence at less than 1 percent.