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 reported that although there were almost 2,000 persons housed at the unit, not one person had reported sexual abuse at the unit in the 12 months preceding the audit. This indicates the unit may be transferring anyone who reports sexual abuse, a possible retaliatory issue, or that reports are being refused. The auditor does not indicate this issue was adequately questioned or investigated.
- The auditor ignored evidence of problems with general staff and investigation training to find the unit fully compliant with PREA training requirements.
- The auditor showed serious misunderstanding of what TDCJ defines as “protective safekeeping,” and how that designation is used and applied. The misunderstanding also includes how the separate “safekeeping designation” is used, as well as how other types of separation occur when sexual harassment and sexual abuse is alleged. Without a clear understanding of these issues, compliance cannot be determined. This is in part a lack of auditor due diligence, but is also caused by intentional manipulation and confusion on TDCJ’s part.