Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA): Cost Impact Analysis

• NCJ Number: 234236
• Date Published: June 2010
• Length: 414 pages
• Agencies: OJP-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis

Annotation

This is the final report of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Cost Impact Analysis, which assisted the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) in reviewing the standards published by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission (NPREC) on June 23, 2009.

Abstract

The PREA of 2003 established the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, which is responsible for developing and implementing national standards for the detection, prevention, reduction, and punishment of prison rape. This report assesses the costs associated with each standard, analyzes variations within the cost estimates, and provides a comprehensive view of implementation and compliance on a national level. The cost impact analysis focuses on five domains of correctional operations: State prison systems, State and local juvenile facilities, community corrections, local/county jails, and police lockups. Among the 41 PREA standards 12 have negligible or no cost impacts. The majority of the sites visited during this analysis (approximately 8 out of 10, demonstrated compliance with these standards. For the sites not in compliance with the standards, there was no indication that meeting the PREA standards would result in any measurable costs. Twenty-six standards have a minimal to modest cost impact. These standards are listed from highest to lowest according to ongoing costs. Overall, sites had varying degrees of compliance with the standards, ranging from a high of 88 percent to a low of 38 percent. On average and collectively, lockups had the highest compliance rate at 74 percent, and jails had the lowest rate at 61 percent. A general correlation exists between lower compliance rates and high costs for specific standards. Nine of the 41 standards had compliance rates under 40 percent although four sites already had staff assigned as PREA Coordinator. Extensive tables and figures and an appended listing of the standards