TPI is filing complaints about PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) auditor failures to provide proper audits. Under PREA § 115.401(o), auditors “shall attempt to communicate with community-based or victim advocates who may have insight into relevant conditions in the facility.” TPI has seldom been contacted concerning information we have about Texas prisons, and the National PREA Resource Center, which oversees the audit process, has failed to hold auditors accountable to this requirement. TPI has developed a simple auditor tool for auditors to see current information about any unit that we have in our system, so they do not have to even contact us. They are required to list if they tried to contact others about prison information and who they contacted. We are seeing many auditors list no contacts, or contacts that are perfunctory and likely provided no information.
Content warning: Some of these letters describe threats and incidents of violence that may be disturbing. We will note whether each letter is considered a low, moderate, or high risk for being disturbing. We consider this letter to be low risk.
The following file is the TPI complaint against the auditor. The audit report by the auditor, which we feel was inappropriately considered final an accepted as documenting “compliance” with the PREA standards, can be accessed here. Some noteworthy points include:
- The auditor did not contact sufficient community-based organizations and advocates.
- The auditor falsely states that 0 persons had ever been placed in segregated housing or isolation for risk of sexual victimization at Memorial Unit.
- The auditor failed to conduct the minimum number of interviews.
- The auditor misrepresented the genders of persons housed at Memorial Unit.
- PREA § 115.15: Due to the misrepresentation of the genders of persons housed at Memorial Unit, the auditor failed to appropriately assess compliance with cross-gender searches and viewing.
- PREA § 115.21: The auditor reported only 10 out of 50 allegations of sexual abuse included forensic evidence collection.
- PREA § 115.42: Due to discrepancies and inconsistencies in the collection of screening data, it cannot be determined from this audit if Memorial Unit meets compliance with this standard or not.
- PREA § 115.43: Due to the numerous inaccuracies in how screening data is used to assure safety, it cannot be determined if Memorial Unit meets compliance or not.
- PREA § 115.68: Due to the failure of the auditor to address compliance with this standard in the report–stating both that not one person out of 50 alleging sexual abuse were housed in protective custody and that all staff stated anyone alleging sexual abuse would be placed in protective custody–it cannot be determined if Memorial Unit meets compliance with this standard or not.
- PREA § 115.72: Due to the limited number of substantiated allegations of sexual violence, as documented in the audit report, it appears unlikely that Memorial Unit meets compliance with PREA evidentiary standards.
- PREA § 115.86: Based on the evidence presented in this report, Memorial Unit is not compliant with this standard, in spite of auditor claims otherwise.