[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 22, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S9703]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  PRISON RAPE ELIMINATION ACT OF 2003

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I commend the Senate for the bipartisan 
cooperation in approving the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
  I especially commend my lead Republican co-sponsor, Senator Sessions 
and his dedicated staff, Andrea Sander, William Smith, and Ed Haden. It 
has been a privilege to work with Senator Sessions and the two lead 
sponsors of this legislation in the House, Congressmen Frank Wolf and 
Bobby Scott.
  I commend as well the extraordinary coalition of churches, civil 
rights groups, and concerned citizens who made this achievement 
possible. The coalition includes Amnesty International, Human Rights 
Watch, the Justice Policy Institute, the NAACP, the National 
Association of Evangelicals, the National Council for La Raza, Prison 
Fellowship, Salvation Army, the Sentencing Project, the Southern 
Baptist Convention, and the Youth Law Center.
  The coalition has been ably led by Michael Horowitz, a senior fellow 
at the Hudson Institute. I also commend Mariam Bell from Prison 
Fellowship and the Wilberforce Forum, Vincent Schiraldi from the 
Justice Policy Institute, Lara Stemple from Stop Prison Rape, and John 
Kaneb, the courageous citizen of Massachusetts whose unyielding effort 
and commitment to human rights has been invaluable to this legislation.
  It has taken us nearly a century to get here. It was Winston 
Churchill who said in 1910 that the ``mood and temper of the public in 
regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most 
unfailing tests of the civilization of any country.''
  Today, in 2003, we know that hundreds of thousands of inmates in our 
Nation--hundreds of thousands, not only convicted prisoners but 
pretrial detainees and immigration detainees as well--are victims of 
sexual assault each year. Of the 2 million prisoners in the United 
States, it is conservatively estimated that 1 in every 10 has been 
raped. According to a 1996 study, 22 percent of prisoners in Nebraska 
had been pressured or forced to have sex against their will. Human 
Rights Watch has reported ``shockingly high rates of sexual abuse'' in 
U.S. prisons.
  Prison rape has devastating physical and psychological effects on its 
victims. It also has serious consequences for communities. Six hundred 
thousand inmates are released from prison or detention each year, and 
their brutalization clearly increases the likelihood that they will 
commit new crimes after they are released.
  Infection rates for HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases, 
tuberculosis, and hepatitis are far greater for prisoners than for the 
population as a whole. Prison rape undermines the public health by 
contributing to the spread of these diseases, and often giving 
potential death sentences to its victims because of AIDS.
  In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled that ``being violently assaulted in 
prison is simply not part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay 
for their offenses against society.'' Federal, State, and local 
government officials have a duty under the Constitution to prevent 
prison violence. Too often, however, officials fail to take obvious 
steps to protect vulnerable inmates.
  The Prison Rape Elimination Act has been carefully drafted to address 
the crisis of prison rape, while still respecting the primary role of 
States and local governments in administering their prisons and jails. 
The act directs the Department of Justice to conduct an annual 
statistical analysis of the frequency and effects of prison rape. It 
establishes a special panel to conduct hearings on prison systems, 
specific prisons, and specific jails where the incidence of rape is 
extraordinarily high. It also directs the Attorney General to provide 
information, assistance, and training for Federal, State, and local 
authorities on the prevention, investigation, and punishment of prison 
rape. It authorizes $40 million in grants to strengthen the ability of 
State and local officials to prevent these abuses.
  Finally, the act establishes a commission that will conduct hearings 
in the next 2 years and recommend national correctional standards on 
issues such as staff training, inmate classification, investigation of 
rape complaints, trauma care for rape victims, and disease prevention.
  These standards should apply as soon as possible to the Federal 
Bureau of Prisons. Prison accreditation organizations that receive 
Federal funding will be required to adopt the standards. Each State 
must certify either that it has adopted and is in full compliance with 
the national standards, or that the State will use 5 percent of prison-
related Federal grants to come into compliance with the standards. 
States that fail to make a certification will have their grants reduced 
by 5 percent.
  The Prison Rape Elimination Act is an important first step. We know 
that prison education programs reduce recidivism and facilitate the 
reentry of prisoners into society. Pell grant eligibility should be 
restored to prisoners who are scheduled for release. Because the high 
incidence of HIV and hepatitis B and C in prisoners threatens the 
health of many others, medical testing and treatment for infected 
prisoners should be expanded and improved. Congress should also repeal 
the provisions of the Prison Litigation Reform Act that prevent inmates 
who have been abused from raising their claims in court.
  I commend our Senate and House colleagues for their strong support of 
the Prison Rape Elimination Act, and I look forward to its enactment.

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