Texas Commission on Jail Standards last week published the attached Memo regarding the final rules coming from the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). PREA Standards

PREA includes standards applying "only to persons under the age of 18 who are under adult court supervision and incarcerated or detained in a prison, jail, or lockup." Of course in Texas, 17+ is considered an adult.

The PREA standards for juveniles in adult facilities are as follows:

"This standard imposes three requirements. First, no inmate under 18 may be placed in a housing unit where contact will occur with adult inmates in a common space, shower area, or sleeping quarters. Second, outside of housing units, agencies must either maintain “sight and sound separation”—i.e., preventing adult inmates from seeing or communicating with youth—or provide direct staff supervision when the two are together. Third, agencies must make their best efforts to avoid placing youthful inmates in isolation to comply with this provision and, absent exigent circumstances, must afford them daily large-muscle exercise and any legally required special education services, and must provide them access to other programs and work opportunities to the extent possible."

With our current facility and staffing levels, this is going to create significant difficulty as to incarceration of 17 year old offenders.

Any thoughts as to advising our counties on implementation of these PREA standards?

PREA_TA_memo.docx (135 Kb, 4 downloads)