I was among the former members of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission who wrote Attorney General Eric Holder this week expressing dismay over recent efforts to weaken and delay enforcement of standards to combat sexual assault in jails and prisons in the United States.
With the passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in 2003, the US Congress recognized that epidemic levels of sexual assault of men, women and youth behind bars, and the government’s failure to provide an effective response, amounted to a violation of their human rights and dignity. In May 2012, the Department of Justice, under PREA, issued a set of strong, cost-effective standards for policies and practices to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual violence in correctional facilities, and required states to certify their compliance with those standards. States that fail to comply with the standards can lose 5 percent of their federal funding for prison-related purposes.
So far only two states – New Hampshire and New Jersey– have certified they have adopted the Justice Department standards. Governors in seven states are either ignoring or refusing to comply with them, and the remaining states have issued “assurances” that they will do so in the future. Given the reluctance or refusal of most states to embrace the standards, federal financial penalties take on added importance as an incentive for them to do so.
Unfortunately, the Senate Judiciary Committee recently proposed amendments to PREA that would reduce financial penalties for failure to comply with the Justice Department standards. In addition, groups working with or for correctional agencies are seeking revisions to PREA’s penalty structure that would also reduce the penalty incentives for compliance. For instance, one proposal would avoid the federal funding penalty for states who promise to pursue PREA compliance by spending an amount equivalent to the penalty in state funds – an unwise and unworkable proposal since there is no way for the federal government to monitor much less regulate such expenditures. .
Meanwhile, sexual abuse behind bars remains widespread. According to the most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics survey, 4.0 percent of state and federal prison inmates, 3.2 percent of jail inmates and 9.5 percent of youth in juvenile detention facilities reported incidents of sexual abuse by another inmate or staff in 2011-2012. This amounts to approximately 98,120 adults and youth in custody reporting sexual abuse.
The figures are appalling – and testify to the critical need for full compliance with the PREA standards.
