Before 2001, the US did not have a problem with rape and sexual assault inside its prisons. That was not because nobody was raped, of course. It was because there had never been a research study large enough and dependable enough to produce any measure of the nature and size of the problem. Federal and state authorities could, therefore, simply avert their gaze and insist there was no need for action.

The complacency was shattered with the publication of a detailed report by Human Rights Watch entitled No Escape: Male Rape in US Prisons. Built upon hundreds of first-hand interviews, the book-length report explained in gut-wrenching detail the realities of prison rape: from one-on-one night-time cell assaults, to multiple-offender gang rapes, to the inmates who were sold to others as sex slaves. It described younger, weaker, more psychologically vulnerable inmates being coerced into sexual activity, under threat of physical violence. Most damningly, the report alleged that much of this was being tacitly condoned and sometimes apparently approved by prison staff and management, who considered it a routine part of prison life and saw no need to intervene.

No Escape was shocking enough to shake America out of its indifference. Two years later, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act 2003, which became the first stage in a decade-long effort to understand and address the horrors of sexual offending inside US jails – a mission that is still far from complete.

In 2014, Britain does not have a problem with rape and sexual assaults within our prisons. The Ministry of Justice appears determined to keep it that way. How? By seemingly doing everything in its power to block a research programme covering the issue, by the Commission on Sex in Prison. This was set up by the Howard League for Penal Reform in June 2012, at a time when Kenneth Clarke was minister.

Under the notoriously draconian stewardship of Chris Grayling, researchers have now been banned from approaching prison governors or serving prisoners, including those out on licence. This means no prisoner serving a life or indeterminate sentence is permitted to participate in the research and for those on licence, even volunteering to give evidence could be regarded as a breach of conditions, which could be punishable by a recall to prison.

The explanations offered for the obstruction range from the asinine to the bizarre. Grayling, we are told, is in something of a huff with "leftwing pressure groups" such as the Howard League – which has recently coordinated effective campaigns against restrictions on parcels containing such dangerous contraband as clean underwear, children's home-made birthday cards and books. Blocking this important research may be an act of petty retaliation.

Also mooted is the justice secretary's well-established discomfort with the whole issue of sex behind bars, including the provision of condoms on request through prison health dispensaries. The remit of the Commission on Sex in Prison (as the name suggests) goes beyond coercion and violence, and investigates other crucial health and welfare-related issues.

So far, the response from the Ministry of Justice to these allegations, first raised by the website politics.co.uk and fleshed out in the Independent newspaper, has been a strict refusal to comment. Grayling has urgent questions to answer: what cooperation with the commission has been offered, and what has been withdrawn? On what basis? What alternative steps will the government take to quantify and address sexual abuse within prisons?

It is a dreadful indictment of our society and culture that prison rape is considered an inconvenience to politicians, a punchline for comedians or, worst of all, as just deserts for criminals. Whenever a high-profile trial results in a prison sentence, a significant section of the population seems to take sadistic glee in imagining a male offender being raped in prison. Often the comments and jokes seem almost automated and thoughtless, like saying "bless you" after a sneeze. One hopes such remarks are based more on ignorance than malice. That said, it would be harsh to condemn ill-informed members of the public for their ignorance, when it would appear that the ignorance of the government and the secretary of state is entirely avoidable.