**6. Major findings**

#### **6.1 Sample description**

The sample consisted of 667 adults (607 males and 24 females) serving prison sentences in a state correctional system in the north east United States in September 2010. The mean age of participants was 56.47 (sd = 6.31). The participants' racial ethnic backgrounds consisted of African-American (45%), White (36%), Hispanic/Latino (10%), and Other (9%). Only 10%

3. Sexual harassment – "Have your ever been bothered or harassed by sexual remarks, jokes, or demands for sexual favors by someone at work or school (for example, a

4. Sexual touch after the age of 16 – "After age 16, were you ever touched or made to touch someone else in a sexual way because he/she forced you in some way or

5. Sexual assault after the age of 16 – "After age 16, did you ever have sex (oral, anal, genital) when you didn't want to because someone forced you in some way or

If participants endorsed 'yes' to an objective occurrence of traumatic or stressful life experiences, three follow-up items asked participants about their age and related post traumatic stress symptoms. As for age, it was measured as a continuous variable and participants were asked, "How old were you when this happened?" As for post traumatic stress symptoms, participants were asked: (1) "at the time of the event did you believe that you or someone else could be killed or seriously harmed?" (2) At the time of the event did you experience feelings of intense helplessness, fear, or horror?" Participants could respond yes or no to these two questions and they were measured as dichotomous/nominal level variables. The LSC-R also includes a subscale for participants' 'subjective' impressions of sexual abuse victimization. For each of the types of sexual victimization experienced, participants were asked their current subjective impression of these events by asking them to rate each type of traumatic and stressful life event on the degree to which it was bothersome within this past year. Each

**5.3.2 Age of occurrence and subjective experiences of sexual victimization** 

item was measured using a five point Likert scale from 1 = not at all to 5 = extremely.

ever been charged with a sexual offense?" Participants could respond 'yes' or 'no'.

Sexual offense history was measured using the following self-report survey item: "Have you

Descriptive statistics were used to examine the sociodemographic characteristics of sexual assault. A series of chi square analyses also were conducted to explore whether earlier life sexual abuse victimization (e.g., sexual touch before age 16, sexual assault before age 16, sexual touch after age 16, sexual assault after age 16, and sexual harassment) was related to the older adults' self-report sexual offense histories. All variables were dichotomous

The sample consisted of 667 adults (607 males and 24 females) serving prison sentences in a state correctional system in the north east United States in September 2010. The mean age of participants was 56.47 (sd = 6.31). The participants' racial ethnic backgrounds consisted of African-American (45%), White (36%), Hispanic/Latino (10%), and Other (9%). Only 10%

coworker, a boss, a customer, another student, a teacher)?"

threatened to harm you if you didn't?"

threatened to harm you if you didn't?"

**5.3.3 Sexual offense history** 

consisting of yes or no response categories.

**5.4 Data analysis** 

**6. Major findings** 

**6.1 Sample description** 

reported having no high school diploma and 30% reported serving in the military. As for family, about 24% of participants reported currently being married or partnered. Furthermore, most participants reported having children (80%), and over half reported having grandchildren (62%).

About one third of participants reported having a mental health diagnosis (36%) or a drug or alcohol problem (36%). The majority had serious offenses, including sex offenses (26%) and violent offenses (64%). On average participants served 132 months (or 11 years). Over half of the participants were expected to be released from prison within one year (37%) or 2 to 5 years (26%); while approximately 10% were expected to be released within 6 to 10 years and 17% after eleven or more years.

### **6.2 Sexual victimization: Objective and subjective experiences**

Table 1 presents the findings on the sexual victimization experience of the study sample. Both inappropriate sexual touch and assault were found to be twice as common before the age of 16 compared to after the age of 16. More specifically, descriptive analyses revealed that 21.9% of the participants reported being a victim of inappropriate sexual touch before the age of 16 compared to 9.4% of the participants reported experiencing inappropriate sexual touch after the age of 16. Similarly, 18.5% reported forced sexual assault before the age of 16, while 9.1% reported sexual assault after the age of 16. The lifetime occurrence of sexual harassment was reported by approximately 1 out of 10 participants. That is, 12.9% of participants endorsed having experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime.

As for age of sexual victimization, the data revealed that childhood sexual abuse began at an average age of 10 with a standard deviation of 4.4 for sexual touch and 3.6 for sexual assault. The average age reported for sexual harassment was 18.6 (sd = 12.4). With regard to the subjective experiences of sexual touch or assault before or after age 16, most participants reported experiencing 'horror felt at the time' (ranging from 79.2%-89.1%). Furthermore, prior sexual touch and sexual assault appeared to have a lingering psychological effect. Many participants also reported that in the past year they felt 'moderately to extremely bothered by the incident in the past year' (ranging from 61.8% - 75.4%). In comparison to sexual touch and victimization, slightly less participants who experienced sexual harassment reported that they perceived that someone could have gotten hurt at the time (36.5%), felt horror at the time (62.7%), and were moderately to extremely bothered by it in the past year (55.1%).


Table 1. Descriptive statistics for the Occurrence of Trauma and Mean Scores for Age First Occurred, Believe Someone would get hurt, Felt Horror at the Time, Moderately to Extremely Bothered by it Past Year

Sexual Abuse Histories Among Incarcerated Older Adult Offenders: A Descriptive Study 29

appropriate, trauma-informed interventions. This study supports the notion that assessing

Along the same lines, evidence-based assessment and interventions must be in line with the finding of how significant the subjective impressions of sexual assault are for incarcerated older adults in treatment. A promising intervention that is being piloted in the criminal justice system with younger age groups is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). EMDR specifically targets change in subjective units of distress among trauma survivors, particularly sexual abuse survivors, which in turn reduces post traumatic stress symptoms (Kitchiner, 2000). Moreover, previous research with incarcerated juvenile offenders shows that EMDR can work in reducing post traumatic stress reactivity resulting in less violent behavior and conduct problems among samples. Its utility for older adults, especially those with histories of sexual assault victimization and perpetration is perhaps a promising intervention. The use of evidence-based practices suggests that untreated trauma and grief are related to increased adult recidivism rates (Leach et al., 2008). Therefore, treating psychological distress and untreated symptoms effectively, which involves both screening and treatment that captures subjective experiences, may help to break the cycle of

This study has notable limitations. First, the study used a cross-sectional design thus precluding causal inferences about the relationship between sexual victimization and sexual offending. The study sample from a northeast state prison system may not be representative of and generalizable to prisoners in other geographic locations and non-English speaking participants. Using a mailed self-administered survey may be another limitation because of

Perhaps most importantly, while the data found in this study related to sexual abuse are slightly higher than in the general public, it is imperative to consider that these numbers are still not representative of the actual rates of sexual victimization in older prisoners. Offenders often do not endorse a history of sexual abuse even if it is present. For instance, research shows that 40% of randomly selected male inmates met the criteria for being a victim of sexual abuse. However, 41% of those people did not consider themselves to have been sexually abused (Fondacaro, Holt & Powell, 1999). Similarly, results from a large study by the Alaska Department of Corrections (1998) of prisoners in Alaska reveal that while 70% of respondents endorsed a history of sexual acts prior to the age of 12, all of which would indicate sexual abuse, only 12% of them considered the experiences to be sexual abuse (Langworthy, Barnes, & Curtis, 1998). As a result, it must be considered a possibility that

The findings of this study support the need for future research to examine the relationship between sexual offending and sexual victimization among incarcerated older offenders. This includes studies that examine a broad range of sexual victimization and how these experiences influence subjective physical and mental well-being and criminal offending, including sexual offending. A longitudinal study examining reactivity among ex-offenders after reentry would greatly benefit the field and provide evidence for policy makers to implement such trauma-informed treatments within the prison system and community

for objective and subjective distress related to these events also may be essential.

recidivism and in some case sexual offending.

these numbers are lower than actuality.

correctional programs.

**7.3 Limitations and future research directions** 

possible low response rates and possible limited literacy levels.

#### **6.3 Chi square results**

The results from the series of chi square tests that were run indicate that there is a significant relationship between having a sexual offense history and each of the sexual victimization variables (sexual touch before age 16 (*X*2 = 26.32, *df* =1, *p* = .001), sexual assault before age 16 (*X*2 = 8.16, *df* =1, *p* = .001), sexual touch after age 16 (*X*2 = 6.0, *df* =1, *p* = .02), sexual assault after age 16 (*X*2 = 7.9, *df* =1, *p* = .01), and sexual harassment (*X*2 = 10.5, *df* =1, *p* = .001). These findings suggest that there is a relationship between prior sexual victimization and sexual offending.
