The health of people in Australia's prisons 2022

Assaults by prisoners on other people in custody are often under-reported, making the collection of these data difficult. Violence is an ongoing challenge in prisons, with the risk of injury to both people in prison and staff. Violence in prison can affect service delivery, staffing, contact between prisoners and rehabilitation (Butler and Kariminia 2006). Sexual violence can have devastating effects on the health and wellbeing of the person assaulted, as well as on the community to which that person returns after release (Simpson et al. 2016).

In a survey of people in Queensland prisons, more than 1 in 3 (34%) males and 1 in 5 (20%) females reported having been physically assaulted in prison, and 2.9% of males and 3.8% of females reported a sexual assault (Butler et al. 2010).

A review of health interventions for people in custody found that sexual violence does occur in prisons even though there is little available literature on the issue (Schwitters 2014).

Physical and sexual assaults among prison dischargees

Prison dischargees were asked whether they had been physically or sexually assaulted while in prison.

Dischargees aged 18–24 (4.1%) were the least likely to report a physical assault while in prison, and those aged 25–34 were the most likely (16%).Prison dischargees were asked whether they had been physically or sexually assaulted while in prison.

Male dischargees (14%) were more likely than female dischargees (4.7%) to report being physically assaulted in prison. About 1 in 6 (17%) non-Indigenous dischargees and 1 in 11 (8.5%) First Nations dischargees reported being physically assaulted in prison.

These data are self-reported and are likely to be an underestimate as people in custody might be reluctant to disclose this information.

Data on sexual assaults were collected by asking prison dischargees whether they had been forced by, or frightened by, another prisoner into doing something sexually that they did not want to do during their current imprisonment.

Over 9 in 10 (96%) reported that they had not been sexually assaulted in prison and 1.6% said they wished not to answer. However, these data are self-reported, and likely to be an underestimate of the true number of sexual assaults in prison, as people in custody might be particularly reluctant to disclose this information (Simpson et al. 2016).