Comment on FR Doc # 2010-04907

Robert Hinchman, Senior Counsel Office of Legal Policy Department of Justice 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Room 4252, Washington, DC 20530 http://www.regulations.gov Regarding: Docket No. OAG–131 Comments on Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Standards Dear Mr. Hinchman: As a retired police chief of over 24 years and current training director for the Saline County Missouri Sheriff’s Dept. my comments echo that of the National Sheriff’s Association and others: While I agree that sexual misconduct has no place in any adult or juvenile jail, detention facility, correctional facility, or prison, at any level of government and in the private sector, any standards imposed by the federal government should be fully funded by the federal government. On Auditing: • The standard for monitoring technology appears to be burdensome to most small jail facilities. Some of jails have limited capacities to purchase, install, monitor and record activities. • The federal government will be overreaching by requiring all correctional facilities to be subjected to a formal audit and data collection process. I believe these requirements are contrary to the intent of Congress, as well as to the very funding impact intent of PREA itself, as stated in §8(a)(3) of the PREA Statute, which mandates that the national standards may not impose substantial additional costs compared to the costs presently expended by federal, state, and local prison authorities. This alone has the potential to impose an overwhelming financial burden on police and sheriff’s departments, and their respective cities and counties, as states and localities will be forced to enact and fund an auditing committee to ensure prisons, jails and lockups are in compliance of the PREA standards. • If a national auditing program is essential to PREA implementation, specific Congressional approval should be sought. If a national auditing program is established by Congress it should include, at a minimum: 1. Funding to all agencies from whom an audit is required to fund the preparation for the audit and the salary/compensation for the auditor; 2. Specific measurable objectives for all standards, which have been validated; 3. A selection process for auditors, including minimum educational and job experience requirements; 4. A mandatory training program for auditors; 5. Orientation programs for agencies from whom an audit is required; 6. A national evaluation program to assess the impact and effectiveness of these audits; and 7. An organization to oversee the audit program, including performing assessments of audits. On other issues relative to the economic impact to implement PREA standards: • The standard on cross gender supervision is ambiguous, particularly with reference to “pat down” searches, a very valuable tool in booking and lockups. This needs more clarity. • There are increased costs incurred for surveillance equipment, personnel and training costs, data collection, analysis storage, and dissemination. • Changes in order to comply would cause: the creation/revision jail policies and procedures; revision of MOUs with local police departments, state police agencies, and mental health facilities; jail management system/classification upgrades; in¬-house revisions; a minimum of 8-16 hours of training for jail staff, with associated costs; staff hours for testing and inmate familiarization PREA standards. These are the expected consequences for every jail throughout the country. Other problems evident: • The failure to recognize the different roles of county jails and state and federal prisons. • Many of the proposed standards are unclear because of the assumption that jails and prisons operate in the same manner. • Last, it appears the adoption of these standards will mean an undue increase in frivolous litigation. Therefore, I recommend that, without full federal funding, the standards exempt local police and sheriff’s departments. Respectfully submitted by, James Simmerman, Executive Director Saline County Criminal Justice Training Center Saline County Sheriff’s Dept. 1915 West Arrow St. Marshall, Mo. 65340 660-886-5512 (phone) james.simmerman@att.net (e-mail) http://salinecountyjusticetraining.ning.com (website)