MDOC PREA: Innovative Sexual Abuse Prevention Program

Authorized under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, the FY19 PREA Program: Implementing the PREA Standards, Protecting Inmates, and Safeguarding Communities will assist confinement facilities and the agencies that oversee them in implementing prevention, identification, and response mechanisms that reduce the incidence of sexual abuse in these facilities, and to promote compliance with the PREA standards. Program funds will be used to support efforts of state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse in confinement facilities covered by the PREA standards; promote comprehensive implementation of the standards; and enhance community safety by decreasing the likelihood that inmates, residents, and detainees are sexually victimized in confinement facilities prior to release.

The recipient will use funds to develop innovative sexual abuse prevention and response programs aimed at protecting inmates who are exceptionally vulnerable to victimization. The goal of this program is to develop promising practices to include a model approach to addressing sexual abuse in facilities with inmates with serious mental illness; a series of training curricula aimed at building staff capacity for working with inmates at high risk of sexual abuse; and model policies for protecting the safety and dignity of transgender inmates.

CA/NCF