WV PREA FY18 Application

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) provides that a state or territory whose governor does not certify full compliance with the standards is subject to the loss of five percent of any DOJ grant funds that it would otherwise receive for prison purposes, unless the governor submits an assurance that such five percent will be used only for the purpose of enabling the state to achieve and certify full compliance with the standards in future years. See 34 U.S.C. 30307(e). The Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) Program is one of the DOJ grant programs subject to this requirement in fiscal year (FY) 2018.

The goals of the FY 2018 PREA Reallocation JAG Program are to continue implementation of the national standards to prevent, detect, and respond to prison rape in order to protect individuals from sexual abuse and sexual harassment in confinement.

The grantee will use awarded PREA Reallocation funds to continue to work on achieving full compliance with the PREA standards. The funds will be subawarded to the West Virginia Division of Corrections, and will support policy analysis and reform, staff training, inmate education, more surveillance, and collaboration with community-based partners. The goals of the program are to: (1) Finalize agency-wide PREA policies and practices; (2) Improve ability to detect, prevent, and respond to sexual abuse by designing and conducting PREA trainings; (3) Increase safety through inmate education; (4) Increase capacity to provide appropriate services to survivors of sexual abuse; and (5) Increase security footage.

NCA/NCF