Rape boosts risk of incarceration in women 4-to-10-fold, new study suggests

The Extreme Sexual Victimization Histories of Women in Prison and the Significance of Race

A survey of more than 700 incarcerated women offers a rare glimpse into their sexual violence histories

The first-of-a-kind study, 15 years in the making , also found that rape significantly increased a young woman’s chances of dropping out of high school—another known risk factor for incarceration.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Colorado at Boulder

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

Women in prison are four times as likely to report having been raped in their lifetime than those who are not incarcerated and 10 times as likely to report having been raped as a child, according to newly published research by a University of Colorado Boulder criminologist.

The first-of-a-kind study, 15 years in the making , also found that rape significantly increased a young woman’s chances of dropping out of high school—another known risk factor for incarceration.

It was published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior.

“The big picture finding here is that being raped overwhelmingly increases your chances of going to prison,” said lead author Joanne Belknap, professor emeritus in the Department of Ethnic Studies at CU Boulder. “Our research suggests that this thing that can happen to you when you’re a kid, and maybe you don’t even know what it is or how to name it at the time, can influence the entire trajectory of your life.”

Counting the forgotten

The study is not the first to find that victims of sexual violence are at greater risk of ending up behind bars.

As far back as 1918, a published account of life in a Pennsylvania prison found an “extremely high prevalence” of past sexual victimization among women there. One 2020 review of several surveys found that as many as 8 in 10 incarcerated women report having been sexually assaulted in some way.  

That compares to about one in four in the general public.

Such assaults, some research suggests, can boost risk of substance use disorders and mental health issues, potentially leading to criminal activity.

Belknap has spent decades working in carceral institutions, conducting research and workshops, teaching college courses, and advocating for women, men and children behind bars. She’s heard the stories time and again.

She recalls one woman in a prison workshop telling her and the other participants how a childhood minister had raped her when she was five years old. He appeared at the prison where she was incarcerated years later asking for forgiveness. She told him: “I can’t do that. I feel like I never would have been here if you hadn’t done that to me.”

But while anecdotes are common, researchers struggle to get solid data because the Centers for Disease Control’s ongoing National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) does not include women living in mental institutions or prisons.

‘These are our moms, our sisters and our aunts’

For the newly published study, co-author Cathy McDaniels Wilson, an Ohio-based psychologist, set out to fill that gap.

In 2010, she distributed surveys to a random sample of women in Ohio’s four state prisons. Wilson sat down with women in small groups as they filled out the questionnaire,  which covered detailed measures of sexual violence, from unwanted kissing and touching to legal but inappropriate sexual coercion and rape.

Aware that the questions could be traumatizing, the researchers ensured that participants had access to counseling afterward.

In all, 716 incarcerated women participated.

Many tearfully thanked Wilson afterward, saying they were grateful to finally be counted.

“We often don't think of being inclusive of those who are incarcerated, but it is important to look at the trajectory that may have gotten them there,” said Wilson. “Many of these women experience abuse in the home, end up running away, on drugs, engaged in prostitution or other activities. These are our moms, our sisters and our aunts.”

With no designated funding for the project, Belknap—a sexual assault survivor herself— made it her mission to continue cleaning and scouring the data and get access to the NISVS data for the general population in Ohio at the same time. Then she compared the two.

 “This is unprecedented. There’s never been a sexual abuse study that looks at the same geographic region at the same time asking very similar questions,” said Belknap.

The study found that, across every one of the 13 comparable measures of sexual violence analyzed, women in Ohio prisons were significantly more likely to experience sexual violence than women in surrounding communities. This gap was typically widest for the most severe sexual abuses.

Specifically, 17% of women in the general population reported that they had been raped at some point. Among incarcerated women, that number was 70%. Nearly one-third of incarcerated women reported being raped before age 11, compared to less than 2% of those who were not incarcerated. Half of incarcerated women reported being raped by age 18, more than 10 times what women in surrounding communities reported.

Across both samples, women who were raped before age 11 were 15% less likely to graduate from high school.

“To be able to document this in such detail, no matter what time period it is from, is so important,” she said.

The study was only conducted for one year in one place.

But she and Wilson, who now counsels sexual violence survivors in her private practice, are confident that if they were to do the survey again today, the results would be similar.

They urge other researchers to follow their lead and begin including incarcerated women across the country as they track sexual violence in the U.S.

They also call for greater support for survivors of all ages, both inside and outside of prison.

 

---

Journal

Criminal Justice and Behavior

DOI

10.1177/00938548241310365 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Extreme Sexual Victimization Histories of Women in Prison and the Significance of Race

 

Noto quake 3D model adds dimension to understand earthquake dynamics

University of Tokyo

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Scientists used supercomputer simulation to reveal the underlying mechanism by which the irregular fault geometry, characterized by multisegments, controlled the variation of the fault slip and resulting uplift. Uplift varied from 1-2 meters in some areas, to as much as 4-5 meters in others.

view more 

Credit: Ryosuke Ando, The University of Tokyo

On New Year’s Day 2024, a massive 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in north central Japan, resulting in extensive damage in the region caused by uplift, when the land rises due to shifting tectonic plates. The observed uplift, however, varied significantly, with some areas experiencing as much as a 5-meter rise of the ground surface. To better understand how the characteristics of the affected fault lines impact earthquake dynamics, researchers in Japan used recently developed simulations to make a detailed model of the fault. The findings could help develop models to simulate scenarios of different earthquakes and mitigate disasters in the future.

The results were published in the journal Earth, Planets and Space as a Frontier Letter.

“During the Noto Peninsula earthquake, we saw devastating uplift in some areas compared to others. In this study, we set out to understand the mechanism controlling the magnitude and spatial and temporal variation of fault slip and the resulting ground surface uplift,” said Ryosuke Ando, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Science at the University of Tokyo and lead author of the current study.

Researchers wanted to develop a model of the 2024 earthquake that built on previous research and used observational data obtained before the earthquake occurred, such as characteristics of the faults involved and seismic activity preceding the devastating quake. If a simulation based on the real-world fault characteristics could accurately model what happened during the earthquake, it would help researchers understand how fault geometry — which describes characteristics such as the shape, orientation, different angles (including what are known as dip and strike) and direction of motion (slip) of the fault — affects earthquake dynamics.

There are three major faults involved in the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake. They are what are known as conjugate faults, i.e., faults with opposite sense of lateral movement. Two of them (the Monzen Fault, marked as Seg. 1 in the figures, and the Noto Peninsula Hoku-gan Fault Zones, Segs. 2-4) are southeast dipping, while the third (the Toyama Trough Sei-en Fault, Seg. 5) is northwest dipping. Dipping refers to the direction of the fault’s incline. Observational data on fault traces (where faults intersect with the earth’s surface) and the fault dipping angle were used to build the 3D fault geometry model. Data from previous seismic activity were used to establish the model of stress conditions. This area was subject to a localized, concentrated seismic swarm of smaller, shallower quakes for years leading up to the 2024 earthquake.

The simulation, developed with observational data of the fault geometry, was able to reproduce the variation in uplift that occurred during the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake. In some areas, uplift caused significant damage, while in others the effect was not as severe due to less prominent uplift. Based on the model of the Noto quake, vertical displacement was concentrated near the fault traces where the fault locally deviates from its overall horizontal orientation. This points to the fault geometry being key to how the earthquake affects the land.

“Our simulation with a supercomputer enabled the analysis of the three-dimensional fault geometry, which is irregularly shaped. We revealed that the fault geometry controlled the overall process through the relative fault orientations to the compressional force acting in the tectonic plate in this region,” said Ando.

Looking ahead, the researchers are considering how this model could be used to develop better dynamic rupture scenarios for future earthquakes. “By demonstrating the potential of simulations with detailed models of fault geometries, we have shown how the characteristics of the fault slip pattern can be constrained before the occurrence of large earthquakes. We expect this finding to lead to building a method to assess the characteristics of hazards caused by future large earthquakes,” said Ando.

###

Research paper:

Ryosuke Ando, Yo Fukushima, Keisuke Yoshida and Kazutoshi Imanishi, “Nonplanar 3D Fault Geometry Controls the Spatiotemporal Distributions of Slip and Uplift: Evidence from the Mw 7.5 2024 Noto Peninsula, Japan, Earthquake,” Earth, Planets and Space: April 29, 2025, DOI: 10.1186/s40623-025-02187-9

Link: https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-025-02187-9

Funding:

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology

Related links:

Graduate School of Science

https://www.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/

Department of Earth and Planetary Science

https://www.eps.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/

Ando Lab

http://www-solid.eps.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~ando/en/

 

The areas of warmer colors experienced larger ground uplift during the earthquake. Traces of seafloor active faults (the cyan lines) run along the north off-shore of the Noto Peninsula.

The fault slips significantly where fault segments are orthogonally oriented to the direction of the compressional stress (green arrows) acting in the tectonic plate because this is the condition when the faults slide effectively. The consistency with the observed surface uplift confirms the validity of the simulation result.

Credit

Ryosuke Ando, The University of Tokyo

About the University of Tokyo

The University of Tokyo is Japan's leading university and one of the world's top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world's top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 4,000 international students. Find out more at https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at @UTokyo_News_en

---

Journal

Earth Planets and Space

DOI

10.1186/s40623-025-02187-9 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Article Title

Nonplanar 3D Fault Geometry Controls the Spatiotemporal Distributions of Slip and Uplift: Evidence from the Mw 7.5 2024 Noto Peninsula, Japan, Earthquake

Article Publication Date

29-Apr-2025

SPACE/COSMOS

Flares from magnetized stars can forge planets’ worth of gold, other heavy elements

Flatiron Institute researchers calculate that a single flare from a supermagnetized star called a magnetar can produce the mass equivalent of 27 moons’ worth of the universe’s heaviest atoms such as gold, platinum and uranium.

Simons Foundation

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

In an ejection that would have caused its rotation to slow, a magnetar is depicted losing material into space in this artist’s concept. The magnetar’s strong, twisted magnetic field lines (shown in green) can influence the flow of electrically charged material from the object, which is a type of neutron star.

view more 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Astronomers have discovered a previously unknown birthplace of some of the universe’s rarest elements: a giant flare unleashed by a supermagnetized star. The astronomers calculated that such flares could be responsible for forging up to 10 percent of our galaxy’s gold, platinum and other heavy elements.

The discovery also resolves a decades-long mystery concerning a bright flash of light and particles spotted by a space telescope in December 2004. The light came from a magnetar — a type of star wrapped in magnetic fields trillions of times as strong as Earth’s — that had unleashed a giant flare. The powerful blast of radiation only lasted a few seconds, but it released more energy than our sun does in 1 million years. While the flare’s origin was quickly identified, a second, smaller signal from the star, peaking 10 minutes later, confounded scientists at the time. For 20 years, that signal went unexplained.

Now, a new insight by astronomers at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) in New York City has revealed that the unexplained smaller signal marked the rare birth of heavy elements such as gold and platinum. In addition to confirming another source of these elements, the astronomers estimated that the 2004 flare alone produced the equivalent of a third of Earth’s mass in heavy metals. They report their discovery in a paper published on April 29 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“This is really just the second time we've ever directly seen proof of where these elements form,” the first being neutron star mergers, says study co-author Brian Metzger, a senior research scientist at the CCA and a professor at Columbia University. “It’s a substantial leap in our understanding of heavy elements production.”

Most of the elements we know and love today weren’t always around. Hydrogen, helium and a dash of lithium were formed in the Big Bang, but almost everything else has been manufactured by stars in their lives, or during their violent deaths. While scientists thoroughly understand where and how the lighter elements are made, the production locations of many of the heaviest neutron-rich elements — those heavier than iron — remain incomplete.

These elements, which include uranium and strontium, are produced in a set of nuclear reactions known as the rapid neutron-capture process, or r-process. This process requires an excess of free neutrons — something that can be found only in extreme environments. Astronomers thus expected that the extreme environments created by supernovae or neutron star mergers were the most promising potential r-process sites.

It wasn’t until 2017 that astronomers were able to confirm an r-process site when they observed the collision of two neutron stars. These stars are the collapsed remnants of former stellar giants and made of a soup of neutrons so dense that a single tablespoon would weigh more than 1 billion tons. The 2017 observations showed that the cataclysmic collision of two of these stars creates the neutron-rich environment needed for the formation of r-process elements.

However, astronomers realized that these rare collisions alone can’t account for all the r-process-produced elements we see today. Some suspected that magnetars, which are highly magnetized neutron stars, could also be a source.

Metzger and colleagues calculated in 2024 that giant flares could eject material from a magnetar’s crust into space, where r-process elements could form.

“It’s pretty incredible to think that some of the heavy elements all around us, like the precious metals in our phones and computers, are produced in these crazy extreme environments,” says Anirudh Patel, a doctoral candidate at Columbia University and lead author on the new study.

The group’s calculations show that these giant flares create unstable, heavy radioactive nuclei, which decay into stable elements such as gold. As the radioactive elements decay, they emit a glow of light, in addition to minting new elements.

The group also calculated in 2024 that the glow from the radioactive decays would be visible as a burst of gamma rays, a form of highly energized light. When they discussed their findings with observational gamma-ray astronomers, the group learned that, in fact, one such signal had been seen decades earlier that had never been explained. Since there’s little overlap between the study of magnetar activity and heavy-element synthesis science, no one had previously proposed element production as a cause of the signal.

“The event had kind of been forgotten over the years,” Metzger says. “But we very quickly realized that our model was a perfect fit for it.”

In the new paper, the astronomers used the observations of the 2004 event to estimate that the flare produced 2 million billion billion kilograms of heavy elements (roughly equivalent to Mars’ mass). From this, they estimate that one to 10 percent of all r-process elements in our galaxy today were created in these giant flares. The remainder could be from neutron star mergers, but with only one magnetar giant flare and one merger ever documented, it’s hard to know exact percentages — or if that’s even the whole story.

“We can't exclude that there could be third or fourth sites out there that we just haven’t seen yet,” Metzger says.

“The interesting thing about these giant flares is that they can occur really early in galactic history,” Patel adds. “Magnetar giant flares could be the solution to a problem we’ve had where there are more heavy elements seen in young galaxies than could be created from neutron star collisions alone.”

To narrow down the percentages, more magnetar giant flares need to be observed. Telescopes like NASA’s Compton Spectrometer and Imager mission, set to launch in 2027, will help better capture these signals. Large magnetar flares seem to occur every few decades in the Milky Way and about once a year across the visible universe — but the trick is to catch it in time.

“Once a gamma-ray burst is detected, you have to point an ultraviolet telescope at the source within 10 to 15 minutes to see the signal's peak and confirm r-process elements are made there,” Metzger says. “It’ll be a fun chase.”

###

About the Flatiron Institute

The Flatiron Institute is the research division of the Simons Foundation. The institute's mission is to advance scientific research through computational methods, including data analysis, theory, modeling and simulation. The institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics creates new computational frameworks that allow scientists to analyze big astronomical datasets and to understand complex, multi-scale physics in a cosmological context.

---

Journal

The Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI

10.3847/2041-8213/adc9b0 

Article Title

Direct evidence for r-process nucleosynthesis in delayed MeV emission from the SGR 1806-20 magnetar giant flare

Article Publication Date

29-Apr-2025

Graphical depiction of how magnetars create heavy elements.

Credit

Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Simons Foundation

 

Chip-shop fish among key seabed engineers

University of Exeter

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Atlantic cod

view more 

Credit: Alex Mustard

Many of the fish we eat play a key role in maintaining the seabed – and therefore our climate, new research shows.

Convex Seascape Survey scientists assessed the role of fish in bioturbation (churning and reworking sediments) in shallow UK seas.

The Atlantic cod – a staple in chip shops – jointly topped the list of these important “ecosystem engineers” (along with Atlantic hagfish and European eel).

In total, 185 fish species were found to play a role in bioturbation – and 120 of these are targeted by commercial fishing.

“Ocean sediments are the world’s largest reservoir of organic carbon – so what happens on the seabed matters for our climate,” said University of Exeter PhD student Mara Fischer, who led the study.

“Bioturbation is very important for how the seabed takes up and stores organic carbon, so the process is vital to our understanding of how the ocean absorbs greenhouse gases to slow the rate of climate change.

“Bioturbation is also important for seabed and wider ocean ecosystems.

“We have a good understanding of how invertebrates contribute to global bioturbation – but until now, we have been missing half the story.

“Our study is the first to attempt to quantify the bioturbation impact of fish, and it shows they play a significant, widespread role.”  

Overfished and overlooked

Co-author Professor Callum Roberts, from the Centre for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall, said: “We also found that species with the highest bioturbation impacts are among the most vulnerable to threats such as commercial fishing.

“Many of the largest and most powerful diggers and disturbers of seabed sediments, like giant skates, halibut and cod, have been so overfished they have all but vanished from our seas.

“These losses translate into big, but still uncertain, changes in the way seabed ecosystems work.”

The researchers examined records for all fish species living on the UK continental shelf, and found more than half have a role in bioturbation – sifting and excavating sediment during foraging, burrowing and/or building nests.

These different ways of reworking the sediments – termed bioturbation modes – alongside the size of the fish and the frequency of bioturbation, were used by the researchers to calculate a bioturbation impact score for each species.

Examples include:

• European eel. Bioturbation mode: burrower. Bioturbation score (out of 125): 100. IUCN conservation status: critically endangered. Fished primarily using traps and fyke nets, they are considered a delicacy in many parts of Europe and Asia – commonly prepared as smoked eel or dishes like eel pie and eel soup. Threats include climate change, diseases and parasites, habitat loss, pollutants and fishing.
• Atlantic cod. Bioturbation mode: vertical excavator. Bioturbation score: 100. IUCN status: vulnerable. Primarily fished using trawling and longlining, they are consumed in many forms, including fish and chips, fresh fillets, salted cod, and cod liver oil. Threats include overfishing, climate change and habitat degradation. Populations have declined in several parts of its range, particularly the North Sea and West Atlantic.
• Common skate. Bioturbation mode: lateral excavator. Bioturbation score: 50. IUCN status: critically endangered. Historically targeted by trawling and longlining, this species is now protected in several regions – but often caught accidentally (bycatch). Numbers have drastically declined due to overfishing. The species is vulnerable due to its large size, slow growth rate, and low reproductive rate – only about 40 eggs are laid every other year, and each generation takes 11 years to reach maturity.
• Black seabream. Bioturbation mode: nest builder. Bioturbation score: 36. IUCN status: least concern. Primarily caught using bottom trawling, gillnets, and hook and line. Fishing during the spawning season in April and May can impact population replenishment. Bottom trawling at this time has the potential to remove the fish, nests and eggs.
• Red gurnard. Bioturbation mode: sediment sifter. Bioturbation score: 16. IUCN status: least concern. Historically not of major interest to commercial fisheries, the species has been targeted more in recent years (including in Cornwall). It is mainly caught by trawlers. There is currently no management for any gurnard species in the EU: no minimum landing size, no quota, etc – which could lead to unsustainable fishing.

Julie Hawkins, another author of the study, commented: “Anyone who has spent time underwater, whether snorkelling or diving, knows that fish are constantly digging up the seabed.

“It’s hard to believe that such an obvious and important activity has been largely overlooked when it comes to understanding ocean carbon burial.”

The Convex Seascape Survey is a partnership between Blue Marine Foundation, the University of Exeter and Convex Group Limited. The ambitious five-year global research programme is the largest attempt yet to build a greater understanding of the properties and capabilities of the ocean and its continental shelves in the earth’s carbon cycle, in the urgent effort to slow climate change.

The paper, published in the journal Marine Environmental Research, is entitled: “A functional assessment of fish as bioturbators and their vulnerability to local extinction.”

---

Journal

Marine Environmental Research

Atlantic cod

Credit

Alex Mustard

DOI

10.1016/j.marenvres.2025.107158 

Article Title

A functional assessment of fish as bioturbators and their vulnerability to local extinction

Article Publication Date

28-Apr-2025