Trump Told Inspectors to Stop Tracking Rapes on LGBTQ+ in Prisons
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has instructed inspectors to stop evaluating prison standards for stopping sexual violence against transgender, intersex, and gender-nonconforming people, NPR reported.
A newly unveiled DOJ memo revises the standards of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in light of the president’s January executive order denying any federal recognition of non-cisgender identities. During this revision, the memo says, PREA audits will no longer evaluate jail, prison, and detention center standards to protect LGBTQ+ and intersex people.
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As a result, auditors will no longer review whether trans inmates get housed according to their gender identity nor will they consider whether instances of sexual violence were motivated by victims’ LGBTQ+ identities.
The PREA audits are some of the only federal tools for ensuring that detention facilities follow laws meant to stop rape, harassment, and retaliation, NPR reported. Such audits involve a review of current procedures, a tour of the facilities, and interviews with prison staff and inmates.
Usually, revisions to federal legislation must go through a formal rule-making process to enact changes, and until that process is completed, federal agents must comply with current federal law. However, the DOJ memo instructs PREA auditors to mark trans-related standards as “not applicable” during the revision process (possibly violating federal law).
However, in a statement, the National Association of PREA Coordinators said that staff at detention centers can “continue following the [trans-inclusive] regulation[s] or, if they choose, to ignore [them].”
“Whether a system adopts a binary sex approach or one that recognizes a spectrum of gender, we cannot forsake our primary responsibility to keep the most vulnerable individuals in our care safe from those who present a threat of sexual abuse or sexual harassment,” the association said in a statement.
Linda McFarlane, executive director of Just Detention International, said the revised policy “will immediately put people in danger.” Studies have shown that LGBTQ+ and non-cisgender people experience higher rates of sexual violence in prisons, jails, and detention centers.
Near the start of his second term, the president ended federal policies allowing trans female inmates to be housed in facilities matching their gender identity. The ending of these policies increases the risk of sexual violence against trans female inmates.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended funding for the National PREA Resource Center, a federally funded training and technical assistance to states and localities which serves as a “single-stop resource for research and tools for all those in the field working to come into compliance with the federal standards,” according to the center’s website.
The National PREA Resource Center also tracks the outcomes of investigations and provides rape-prevention resources to victims and inspectors.
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