INTIMATE PARTNER ABUSE, SURVIVAL AND RESILIENCE While romantic relationships can be beautiful and affirming for prisoners, they can also be harmful and abusive, just as they can be for people outside of prison. A third of respondents experienced some combination of emotional, physical, sexual, cultural and/or financial abuse in one or more romantic partnerships in prison. That percentage is higher than the statistic often cited that 1 in 4 LGBTQ people experience intimate partner violence nationwide.2
93% 62% No, 53%
Yes, 47%
42%
36%
14%
Whether respondent has ever been in an abusive relationship in prison and, if yes, what kind(s) of abuse were present Respondents: 726 &342, respectively Eighty-two percent of respondents did not know of any institutional resources that could help them if they were attempting to leave an abusive relationship. The 18% of respondents who had some idea about available institutional resources mostly referred to PREA. Everyone who claimed knowledge of resources attested that most were untrustworthy and did not attempt to use them, or did little to nothing to intervene or protect themselves from intimate partner abuse. Respondents who offered their own solutions to ending abusive relationships mostly did so without direct institutional support. A few respondents were able to enlist the support of friends or fight back on their own. One respondent wrote, “I ended my emotionally abusive relationship by sending him a note. I had the support of several friends close to me. I was worried when he moved back to the unit, but everything worked out.” However, not all prisoners have access to friends who will defend them. Most respondents found that the only viable resolution they had access to was distancing themselves from their partner by moving to a different housing unit or another facility altogether. One of the most common ways of distancing oneself from an abusive partner was to seek solitary confinement. However, a request to be held in solitary confinement to get away from another prisoner is not always granted. One respondent wrote, “I had to cut my wrist to get away because the officers wouldn't help. It was the only way.” Self-harm can be one way that prisoners get themselves out of abusive relationships, or other particularly dangerous situations, although doing so often forces them into mental health units that have their own detrimental consequences.