Human Rights Watch wrote to urge the North Carolina Senate to pass House Bill 585, which would bring all correctional and juvenile facilities in the state into compliance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). The text of the letter is below.
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Senator Phil Berger, President Pro Tempore
North Carolina Senate
16 W. Jones Street, Room 2008
Raleigh, NC 27601-2808
Senator Harry Brown, Majority Leader
North Carolina Senate
300 N. Salisbury Street, Room 300-B
Raleigh, NC 27603-5925
Senator Martin L. Nesbitt, Jr., Minority Leader
North Carolina Senate
16 W. Jones Street, Room 1129
Raleigh, NC 27601-2808
RE: House Bill 585 and PREA Compliance
Dear Senator Berger, Senator Brown, and Senator Nesbitt:
Human Rights Watch urges North Carolina to pass House Bill (HB) 585, which provides that all state correctional facilities and juvenile facilities shall comply with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). As one of the leading independent organizations dedicated to protecting and defending human rights, Human Rights Watch has been closely monitoring the implementation of PREA throughout the United States, and we are pleased that North Carolina is proposing moving forward with legislation that codifies PREA compliance.
When Congress unanimously passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003, its stated goal was to “provide for the analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape in Federal, State, and local institutions and to provide information, resources, recommendations and funding to protect individuals from prison rape.” The standards implementing PREA, issued in May of 2012, offer a practical, feasible roadmap for how to end the epidemic of prison rape, and states should be working to comply with those standards.
Human Rights Watch has been reporting on rape and sexual assault in prison since 1996, when we published our report “All Too Familiar,” which examined rapes of women in US prisons. In that report we found endemic abuse of women prisoners, ineffective or nonexistent grievance procedures, and a failure to hold perpetrators accountable. Our 2001 follow-up report, “No Escape: Male Rape in US Prisons,” uncovered a similar indifference to the problem of male prisoner-on-prisoner sexual assault.
Jamie Fellner, senior advisor to the US Program of Human Rights Watch, served on the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, which was established by PREA to study federal, state, and local government policies and practices concerning sexual assaults and crimes within US prison and jail systems and to develop standards to detect, prevent, respond to, and punish prison rape.
By choosing to codify PREA compliance into state law, North Carolina will ensure that all state correctional and juvenile facilities are abiding by the necessary standards. Human Rights Watch urges passage of HB 585.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Natalie Kato
Southern State Policy Advocate
US Program
Human Rights Watch
