Hey all,

I've been questioning the "more men in prison are raped than women" statistic that comes up now and again simply because I want to understand the breakdown of the numbers. I've done a bit of digging, mostly of actual government reports, not random websites people most often link to and would like some help verifying these numbers and methodology. I'm not a statistician and I know there are likely some holes in this, or additional studies, please let me know (originally posted as a comment here).

Reported cases of forceful rape and attempted sexual assault were 82,280 for 2009 as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract, 2012 which defines rape as female only. As far as I can find, the only legitimate governmental estimated statistics on unreported rape and sexual assault by U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey put estimates of rape and sexual assault cases at 125,920 also for 2009. According to the document, "The NCVS collects information on nonfatal crimes reported and not reported to the police against persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households."

So, 82,280 reported, 125,920 estimated for female rape in total in the United States in 2009.

Actual reported cases in prison are less exact (if someone can track down better stats, let me know). Estimated percentage of reported cases of sexual misconduct in prisons as of 2012 is 9.6%. The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 estimates between 9-20% of the prison of inmates had been sexually assaulted. Previous studies from the 80's, 90's & 00's peg it at around 14% although a more recent meta review of other research was done and puts it at 1.9%, it seems like such an outlier compared to every other study I've come across that I'm not sure of its validity (if someone knows why this is so different than every other study, please let me know and hopefully we can use the 1.9% rather than the 14% stat). Given the total incarceration rate of 2.29m in 2009, 92.9% of which are male leaves us with ~2.12m.

This comes out to an estimated 201,600 reported male sexual assaults is with an estimated 294,000 in total reported and non-reported cases in 2009.

I find the level of rape and sexual assault for all humans alarming. Work should be done to protect all persons, regardless of sex. No one deserves to be physically assaulted against their will. No one.

Disclaimer: I'm not a statistician by any means, and I do not claim that these numbers are wholly representative, its just what I could piece together from legitimate sources. Feel free to correct any errors I may have!