Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2006, $1,000,000)
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 Kentucky Department of Corrections will use the grant funds to fully meet the objectives of the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA) and address the issue of prison rape and community safety in several ways, including: 1) providing training to individuals that work directly with offenders in a variety of prison settings; 2)implementing a system to better classify inmates who are at high-risk for sexual victimization as well as those who are at risk for being predators; 3) implementing monitoring technologies to respond to incidents in a timely way so as to prevent, accurately report and investigate prison rape; 4) providing additional Class D Coordinators to facilitate the release of offenders recommended for parole; 5) hiring additional Probation and Parole Officers to provide increased case management and supervision services; and, 6) hiring additional jail inspectors with specialized PREA training to assist in investigation, training and technical assistance for jails and halfway houses.
CA/NCF