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 files are the TPI complaint against the auditor and the TPI audit report generated at the time the complaint was filed. The audit report by the auditor, which we feel was inappropriately accepted by the National PREA Resource center, can be accessed here. Some noteworthy points include:
- The auditor admits no effort was made to contact outside agencies.
- The auditor claims there were 0 LGBTQ persons at the unit during the audit, then claims to have interviewed three of the non-existent persons.
- The auditor claims there were at the facility 0 incarcerated persons who had reported sexual abuse in the facility and 0 who had disclosed prior sexual abuse during risk screening. TPI presented clear evidence that such a statement is likely false.
- The auditor also claimed that 0 persons had ever been placed in segregated housing for risk of sexual victimization at Clements Unit. This can only be true if TDCJ’s inaccurate and self-serving interpretation of the PREA phrase “involuntary protective custody” is wrongly accepted.
- The auditor claims that Clements Unit “does not conduct cross-gender searches or cross-gender visual body cavity searches except when performed by medical practitioners,” when in fact this is only true when accepts the erasure of all transgender identities.
- The auditor claims there were no reports of retaliation for reporting sexual violence in the past 12 months, contrary to TPI’s documentation of at least three reports made to us.