BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Several states are refusing to comply
with a federal law designed to reduce sexual assaults in prison, with
governors criticizing the decade-old law as counterproductive and too
expensive to implement.
The governors of Idaho, Texas, Indiana,
Utah and Arizona have informed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that
they won’t try to meet the standards required under the Prison Rape
Elimination Act. Governors were required to certify by May 15 that their
states either met the standards designed to curb widespread sexual
abuse behind bars, or to promise that they were actively working toward
that goal.
"Idaho supports the spirit and intention of PREA and
the National PREA Standards, but a law with good intent has evolved into
a law with too much red tape," Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter wrote in a
letter to Holder sent five days after the deadline. It would cost the
state millions of dollars to meet some of the standards, Otter said, and
he believed the cost would have little ultimate benefit. Besides, the
governor said, the state has taken substantial steps to reduce sexual
victimization in correctional facilities.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry
told Holder in April that his state wouldn’t comply because the rules
were too costly and violated states’ rights. Perry’s letter also
encouraged other states to reject the federal law, and said that
instead, his state would continue the programs it already has to reduce
prison rapes. Perry’s spokesman Rich Parsons said Friday that Perry sent
a subsequent letter last week to Holder, contending that some PREA
standards are in conflict with Texas state laws.
Brenda Smith, a
former commissioner on the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission
which helped create the PREA standards, said the decision by some states
to opt out is shameful.
"These are not some high falutin’,
unreachable standards. These are things that are constitutional, based
on best practices that have been determined in the field and in the
courts," Smith said. "As a state you can move over to the sidelines, but
people in custody don’t get to move over to the sidelines. Providing
them safety from sexual abuse is the minimum we can do."
At least
10 more states — Alaska, New York, Ohio, California, Washington,
Oklahoma, West Virginia, Colorado, Mississippi and Illinois — have said
that they can’t meet all the requirements yet, but are actively working
toward that goal. New Mexico says it’s fully compliant with the law.
Leaders
of Just Detention International, an organization that works to end
sexual abuse in detention facilities, said they were encouraged that
most states are working toward PREA compliance.
"We want actual
certifications to be meaningful, so states should certify only when they
know that they are in full compliance," said the organization’s
executive director Lovisa Stannow in a prepared statement. "Until then,
the Department of Justice must strictly monitor states to ensure that
they are using their federal funds appropriately. No state should be
meeting its five percent financial commitment by diverting funds away
from essential inmate services like rape crisis counseling – doing so
would run counter to the intent of PREA."
The Prison Rape
Elimination Act was passed unanimously by Congress in 2003. The next
several years were spent developing PREA standards, and in 2012 those
rules went into effect. The Department of Justice is expected to publish
a list of PREA-compliant states by September.
The major
provisions of PREA are designed to change the culture of prisons to one
that has zero tolerance for sexual victimization; to change prison
facilities so that there are fewer opportunities for rape to occur; and
to change reporting policies so that inmates have a safe way to report a
crime and a safe place to go if they are sexually victimized.
The
law’s only enforcement mechanism is a partial loss of grant funding.
States that don’t comply with PREA can lose up to 5 percent of the
federal grant money they receive for corrections. States can keep the
money if they promise to use it to come into compliance with the law.
The
potential human impact is huge: The Department of Justice says that at
least 216,000 of U.S. prisoners were raped or sexually abused behind
bars in 2011, and cautions that the number is likely low, because prison
rapes are seldom reported. The ACLU estimates that about 2 million
people have been raped or sexually abused behind bars since PREA was
enacted by Congress.