Metropolitan Detention Center PREA Project

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Program provides funding to state governments for demonstration projects within local adult and juvenile confinement settings, including jails and juvenile detention facilities, law enforcement lockups and other temporary holding facilities, and tribal detention facilities. Funding is awarded to states that successfully communicate a comprehensive approach to the prevention, detection, and response to the incidence of sexual abuse and clearly prioritize gaps which are as of yet unaddressed, either programmatically or through changes in policy and procedures, as it relates to implementation of the PREA standards. The goal of this program is to assist local adult and juvenile facilities in implementing prevention, identification, and response mechanisms that will reduce the incidence of sexual abuse in confinement facilities.

The New Mexico Department of Public Safety and Bernalillo County's Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) plan to join with Just Detention International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending sexual abuse in all forms of detention, and the University of New Mexico's Institute for Social Research (MDS's long-standing research partner) to develop comprehensive mechanisms for preventing, identifying, and responding to sexual victimization within the MDC. The project partners will work toward the following goals: 1) stimulate meaningful and lasting culture change within the Bernalillo County Jail by establishing best practices in preventing and responding to sexual abuse; 2) develop a sexual assault response team (SART) protocol that complies with the national PREA standards and adheres to best practices; and 3) develop systems for sexual abuse data collection and review to comply with the PREA standards and to reduce sexual abuse within the facility. CA/NCF