The Department of Justice PREA Management Office is pleased to announce the release of the PREA Auditor Handbook (Handbook) Version 2.1. The Handbook Version 2.1 is updated to reflect several important changes to requirements for PREA auditors.
PREA Standard § 115.16 requires agencies to ensure people in confinement, including those with disabilities, have equal access to efforts preventing and responding to sexual abuse and harassment. This page provides links to clearinghouse resources to help agencies meet this requirement.
During this webinar, we cover PREA Standard 115.16 Inmates, detainees, and residents with disabilities and inmates, detainees, and residents who are limited English proficient. The purpose of this standard is to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse of all inmates by ensuring that all inmates, including those who have disabilities, are Deaf, or who are limited English proficient, have equal access to PREA-related educational materials and departmental policies, reporting mechanisms, and available victim services. Reporting mechanisms and victim services are meaningless if inmates do not know about them or cannot access them.
Our featured presenter is Allison Hastings, Project Director (Vera Institute of Justice).
PREA Standards in Focus is a feature designed to provide a quick synopsis of a PREA standard, the intent and purpose, implementation tips, challenges, and a few audit issues related to the standard to assist in further awareness and education. FAQs and resources are directly linked to provide ease of access and bundle in one place.
Note: Standards in Focus (SIFs) are not intended for use by the Department of Justice-certified PREA auditors to evaluate PREA compliance. SIFs are a tool designed to help agencies and facilities implement, educate, and become familiar with the PREA standards and some related best practices, but are not a compliance checklist. They contain guidance about implementation best practices that may not be required and thus it would not be appropriate for auditors to audit against the SIF. SIFs also do not exhaust implementation guidance for every requirement in every standard.