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Regulatory Impact Assessment: United States Department of Justice Final Rule National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape Under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA)

NCJ Number
239932
Date Published
May 2012
Length
185 pages
Annotation
This report presents the results of a regulatory impact assessment of the implementation of national standards to prevent, detect, and respond to prison rape as required under the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
Abstract
This regulatory impact assessment (RIA) was conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice to asses and monetize the benefits of establishing and implementing national standards to prevent, detect, and respond to prison rape. The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) requires the establishment of national standards to deal with the problem of rape at both adult and juvenile correctional facilities. This assessment examines the costs and benefits of full nationwide compliance with, and implementation of the national PREA standards in all covered facilities. According to the results of the assessment, full national compliance with the standards would cost the correctional community approximately $468.5 million per year, or a total of $6.9 billion for the period 2012 through 2026. The annualized cost per facility for compliance with the standards would be $55,000 for prisons, $50,000 for jails, $24,000 for community correctional facilities, $54,000 for juvenile facilities, and $16,000 for lockups. Since the PREA does not require full nationwide compliance with the standards, the RIA determined that States would spend considerably less for implementation of the standards than was calculated in the assessment. Sections included in this report are the Statutory Basis and Need for the Final Rule, The Baseline Prevalence of Prison Rape, The Benefits Analysis, Estimating the Monetized Unit Benefit of Reducing the Prevalence of Prison Rape and Sexual Abuse, Cost Analysis, and the Cost Justification Analysis. Tables, figures, and appendixes