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 submitted as final documentation of “compliance” with the PREA standards, can be accessed here. Some noteworthy points include:
- The auditor has potential conflicts of interest.
- The auditor found no corrective actions were necessary, even though presenting information indicating noncompliance.
- The auditor misrepresented the genders of persons housed at Lewis Unit.
- 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 Lewis Unit.
- The auditor failed to conduct the minimum number of interviews.
- PREA § 115.13: The auditor failed to address the impact of staff shortages on PREA compliance.
- PREA § 115.15: The auditor failed to appropriately assess cross-gender searches.
- PREA §§ 115.21 and 115.64: The auditor failed to address the apparent failure to offer survivors of sexual abuse access to SANE exams.
- PREA § 115.31: The auditor failed to appropriately assess staff PREA training practices.
- PREA § 115.41: The auditor failed to appropriately assess screening practices.
- PREA § 115.42: The auditor failed to appropriately assess use of screening information.
- PREA §§ 115.43 and 115.68: The auditor failed to understand and appropriately assess the use of protective custody for PREA complaince.
- PREA §§ 115.51, 115.52, 115.53, and 115.54: The auditor failed to appropriately assess PREA incident reporting practices.
- PREA § 115.72: The auditor failed to appropriately assess the evidentiary standard being applied in investigations of sexual violence.
- PREA § 115.73: The auditor failed to appropriately assess compliance with reporting investigation findings to incarcerated persons.
- PREA § 115.86: The auditor failed to appropriately assess required incident review by Lewis Unit.