[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12423]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      PRISON RAPE ELIMINATION ACT

  (Mr. SCOTT of Virginia asked and was given permission to address the 
House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago today, this body 
unanimously passed PREA, the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which my 
colleague from Virginia, Frank Wolf, and I sponsored.
  PREA is designed to end sexual violence in our Nation's prisons. One 
focus of PREA is on reducing assaults on children in our criminal 
justice system. Youthful inmates are more likely than their adult 
counterparts to be victimized by prison staff and adult inmates. Under 
PREA, no youth under 18 years of age can be placed in a housing unit 
where contact with adult inmates may occur.
  Furthermore, children in adult jails and prison are often placed in 
solitary confinement for their own protection, which turns out to be 
detrimental to their mental health. Due to this type of confinement and 
exposure to abuse, youth have the highest rates of suicide amongst all 
inmates. PREA urges agencies to avoid subjecting children to solitary 
confinement.
  Mr. Speaker, I call on the Department of Justice to redouble its 
efforts to ensure that every State implements PREA to protect all 
inmates from sexual violence. The type of sexual violence that has 
plagued our prisons and jails is cruel and unusual punishment and 
should not be part of an inmate's prison term.

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