Some Republican Governors Continue to Dodge Federal Anti-Prison Rape Law

WASHINGTON — Some Republican governors continue to dodge the federal law that aims to prevent rape in U.S. correctional facilities, despite a looming Justice Department deadline that will hit uncooperative states with financial penalties.

The lack of enthusiasm shown by some states to meet basic federal standards may create a setback for groups trying to stop sexual assault in American prisons. Already, criminal justice reform advocates are fearing that lawmakers on the Hill will soon push a proposal to weaken the penalties on states that don’t comply to federal rules.

At issues is the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), which passed in 2003 with a high level of bipartisan support. After years of study, the Obama administration finalized the law’s requirements in 2012. The law, which applies to public and private lockups and extends to both adult and juvenile offenders, sets a number of anti-rape requirements — including that youth must be housed separately from adults, that sexual abuse victims must have access to free forensic medical evaluations and that facilities beef up reporting on sexual assault.

Advocates consider implementing the law to be a fundamental step states must take to provide basic protections in prisons. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about 200,000 inmates were sexually abused in 2011 — excluding kids, who are particularly at-risk for sexual assault when held in adult facilities.

To incentivize states to adopt the guidelines, the law dictates that nonparticipating states will lose certain DOJ funds — such as some funding for the STOP Violence Against Women Formula Grant Program, which helps states combat violent crimes against women. The Justice Department announced last year that 43 states were either in compliance with the law or had promised that they would use a portion of grant funds to work to achieve compliance in the future. But seven states led by Republican governors — Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Texas and Utah — did not make that promise, the agency noted.

It wasn’t just bureaucratic hold-ups keeping the states from pledging to comply with the requirements. Several of the governors explained that they were defying the law on purpose, arguing that the uniform federal approach was counterproductive to their state anti-rape efforts. On March 5, the Justice Department again told states they had to implement reforms or commit to complying by May 15. It’s still unknown which hold-out states will meet the deadline. Moreover, some appear unfazed by the prospect of being penalized.

Gov. Gary Herbert (R) of Utah wrote in a letter to a DOJ official last May that the state was not implementing certain PREA recommendations because “they are not sound policy” and “we need more flexibility from the federal government.” He cited, for instance, the requirement of officers announcing their presence when they enter facility areas with opposite-gender inmates. Herbert said this could endanger officers.

The “intent of this standard is to provide inmates with basic human dignity while they shower, change clothes… etc.,” Jesse Lerner-Kinglake, a spokesman for human rights organization Just Detention International, wrote in an email to HuffPost. “Staff safety and inmate dignity are not mutually exclusive.”

A spokesman for Herbert told HuffPost that the governor’s position hadn’t changed and they expected federal officials to penalize Utah. “We [decided] that maintaining good policy for Utah was more important,” he said.

In Idaho, a spokesman for the state Department of Correction also said their position had not changed, but noted that they were evaluating how to become compliant in the future. He said that “Idaho is developing its own PREA standards.”

In Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence (R) wrote last year that “there is little empirical data” showing certain PREA standards to be effective and that fully complying the law would require “redirection of millions of tax dollars currently supporting other critical needs for Indiana.”