Poster #19 - Framing Sexual Misconduct between Women Correctional Staff and Incarcerated Boys.

• In Event: Poster Session I (posters 1 - 79)

Abstract

Prior studies on sexual victimization have examined power dynamics between male perpetrators and female survivors. Yet few studies investigate how gender, sexuality, and age shape how correctional facilities respond to women staff’s sexual abuse of incarcerated boys. Given gendered perceptions of boys as heterosexual and hypersexual, society has often reframed women’s sexual harassment and abuse as sexual capital. Such framing perpetuates gendered inequalities that incarcerated boys cannot be victims of women’s sexual abuse. This project thus examines how gender, sexuality, and age structure decision-making processes that determine whether boys’ allegations of sexual misconduct by women staff are substantiated, unsubstantiated, or unfounded. I draw from eight in-depth staff-on-youth PREA investigative reports to analyze how correctional authorities construct gendered power dynamics between women staff and incarcerated boys. Two themes emerged from my content analysis: boys were constructed as consensual sexual agents of women’s abuse, and women’s sexual behavior was framed as grooming. Together, these findings demonstrate how gender, sexuality, and age play a key role in how correctional authorities understand sexual assault in penal settings.

Authors

• Lonni Lee Garcia, University of Iowa

• Amber J. Powell, University of Iowa