A man accused of dismembering a friend and filling his grandmother's freezer with the body parts last year, is now being charged with two dozen counts of sexual assault against a fellow prisoner at the Anchorage jail. 22-year-old Elmer Seetot was arraigned this week on 28 charges, including 23 counts of rape.

The assaults occurred over a period of five consecutive days in November and December, according to the charging document. Barry Jack, Seetot's victim, shared a cell in the Echo Mod unit, known officially as the Anchorage Correctional Complex West.

47-year-old Jack from Valdez, is in jail on theft and forgery charges. The days of the attacks, Jack said he feared for his life. Seetot's promise to kill Jack kept him from informing the guards of the ordeal he faced every night. "I was terrified," he said.

Jack's attacker, as described by Jack, is roughly the same height, but "buffed out."

Soft-spoken and suffering from a bipolar disorder, Jack was unable to report the attack he said, until he was moved to a safer section of the prison where he knew and trusted one of the correctional officiers.

Jack said he has undergone testing for sexually transimitted diseases and Standing Together Against Rape has offered him counseling.

Joe Schmidt, Department of Corrections Commissioner, claimed that everything was done properly the nights of the reported attacks. There were regular half-hour checks of all the inmates in their cells.

Jack questions why a nonviolent thief such as himself was made to share a cell with a man charged with hacking up a body.

Schmidt says that prisoners at the Anchorage jail complex are generally awaiting trial. An in-depth evaluation of their potential for misbehavior is not done until after conviction. According to Schmidt, the department doesn't have the money or staff to thoroughly examine the past behavior of every one of the almost 38,000 who shows up charged with a crime.

How prisoners actually behave in custody determines how they will be classified. Schmidt explained that traffic violators can be aggressive and murders can be docile in jail.

University of South Dakota psychology professor Cindy Struckman-Johnson has extensively researched prison rape. One way of combating the problem, she said, is classifying prisoners as soon as they enter the system to identify those who may be vulnerable. Sexual coercion is as high as 20 percent across the nation, said Johnson. Contributing factors include, prison culture and violent inmates using sex to act out or as an act of retaliation. Reports made by male victims only totals to about 30 percent, she said.

Only 72 Alaskan inmates were disciplined or arrested for a sex charge involving another prisoner or staff member between 2004 and 2007, said corrections officials. That statistic applies to about 3,300 inmates locked up in Alaska. This does not include the 1,000 housed in an Arizona private prison on state contract. Those caught engaging in consensual sex, said Alaska corrections spokesman Richard Schmitz, are also included in that total. Only two have been convicted of a sex crime.

"It's kind of like a host and a parasite," Johnny Johnson said over a phone interview. The weak, pair up with the more aggressive, exchanging sex for protection. Others who aren't lucky enough to have protection are preyed upon, he said.

Convicted of three counts of attempted murder and awaiting sentencing at the Anchorage jail, Johnson an uninvolved inmate said that it's the smaller male inmates who get preyed upon. They are know as "punks" or "bitches," said Johnson, "It happens all the time."

Sometimes one prisoner will protect another just because it's the right thing to do, Johnson said, "it's the lamb, the wolf, and the sheepdog in here. And the sheepdog turns a blind eye."

Even nonviolent prisoners have to get tough. In dealing with the constant threat, they have to show aggressiveness to not end up a victim.

Jack and Seetot remain housed in different cells at the Anchorage jail.