In total, sexual minorities - LGBT individuals or those who reported a same-sex sexual experience before arrival at the facility - represented 9.3 percent of all men in prison, 6.2 percent of men in jail, 42.1 percent of women in prison and 35.7 percent of women in jail. Sexual minorities were also more likely to experience solitary confinement and to report psychological distress.
The data showed as well that sexual minorities were more likely than heterosexual prisoners to report sexual victimization as a child and to be incarcerated for violent sexual and nonsexual crimes rather than crimes related to property, drugs or parole violations. “This raises a lot of questions and a call-to-action for policy changes in both jails and prisons,” Meyer said. “In a similar way we’re discussing race and incarceration, the experience seems to be different across the whole criminal justice process for minorities.” In both prisons and jails, gay or bisexual men were also more likely than straight men to have sentences longer than 10 years in prison. “The burning question is: How did such a high proportion of LGB men and women end up incarcerated?” Meyer said. “Where is the root of this?”
The study authors speculate that prejudice toward sexual minorities may lead to discriminatory treatment, from initial contact with law enforcement, such as overpolicing of sexual offenses. Also, family rejection, illegal drug use and community-level marginalization may increase the risk of incarceration. “We need to understand whether there are biases ingrained in our court system that lead to sexual minorities being handled in a different way,” Meyer said. “With race, this is nothing new, and now we’re seeing it’s also true for the sexual minority population.” READ MORE
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