US Justice Department Releases Prison Abuse Data: Advocates Say Transgender Victims Were Obscured
In October 2026, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of the US Department of Justice released two reports examining sexual victimization in correctional facilities covering February 2023 through February 2024. Civil rights advocates criticized the presentation of the findings, pointing out that the agency singled out transgender people as a distinct category among alleged perpetrators while omitting explicit mention of transgender inmates from primary victimization tables.
Both reports draw on findings from the fourth National Inmate Survey (NIS-4) and examine incidents across federal and state prisons as well as local jails. According to LGBTQ Nation, data tables detailing the perceived identity of perpetrators list transgender individuals separately: 10.9% of victims in prisons and 11.6% in local jails reported experiencing inmate-on-inmate sexual assault by someone they perceived as transgender.
Conversely, in tables measuring victim demographics, transgender respondents are grouped under an “other” category alongside male and female designations. Explanatory footnotes specify that “other” comprises individuals whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth. Victimization rates within this group were substantially higher than averages: in prisons, 32.2% of inmates categorized as “other” reported sexual victimization (compared to 3.5% of men and 5.2% of women), while in local jails the figure was 26.1% (compared to 3.5% of men and 5.4% of women).
Richard Saenz, senior counsel at Lambda Legal, and analysts at the Prison Policy Initiative argued that highlighting transgender perpetrators while blurring victim data distorts public understanding of vulnerability inside correctional facilities. Supporters of the department’s methodology maintain that the survey relied on inmates’ subjective perceptions of perpetrators while following standard demographic classification frameworks.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is the principal statistical agency of the US Department of Justice, responsible for gathering and analyzing nationwide data on crime, criminal justice, and correctional operations under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
The safety and housing conditions of transgender individuals in the US penal system have been the subject of ongoing litigation: Urania previously reported on a ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that permitted Oregon correctional officials to house transgender women in men’s prisons despite warnings regarding elevated risks of violence.
