FY06 Protecting Inmates and Safeguarding Communitites

The Protecting Inmates and Safeguarding Communities Discretionary Grant Program was created as a result of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (the Act), Public Law 108-79. The goal of the Act is to eradicate sexual assaults in all of the correctional facilities in this country, be they federal, state, or local in nature. Nevertheless, the statutory focus for this grant program is state and local correctional facilities. This program is divided into two parts: (1) Protecting Inmates and (2) Safeguarding Communities. The Protecting Inmates part focuses on providing funding to state and local agencies for the costs of personnel, training, technical assistance, and data collection in the areas of prevention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of victims of inmate on inmate sexual assault in a correctional facility. The Safeguarding Communities component of the program focuses on assisting the states in developing and implementing strategies when making release decisions for sexual aggressors without compromising public safety and addressing the needs of the victims after release.

The South Dakota Department of Corrections is comprised of adult and juvenile correctional facilities, adult parole and juvenile aftercare. Funding will encompass policy development, training development, assessment design, inmate education and awareness, and state/local communication protocols. The goals of this program are as follows:

'Eliminate rape and sexual assault of inmates in state correctional facilities;
'Provide assistance to eliminate rape and sexual assault of inmates in local jails and juvenile detention centers;
'Protect communities when sexual aggressors are released from custody; and
'Design and implement systems to support performance and reports, grant progress monitoring and output and outcome evaluation.

CA/NCF