§30306 National Prison Rape Elimination Commission

Summary

Creates a nine-member National Prison Rape Elimination Commission to study and recommend ways to stop rape in jails and prisons. Three members are picked by the President. Three come from the House (appointments split between the Speaker and the House minority leader depending on party alignments). Three come from the Senate (appointments split between the majority and minority leaders depending on party alignments). Each member must know about the issues the Commission studies. The appointing leaders must talk with one another to try to pick people with different views. Members serve for the life of the Commission. All members must be appointed within 60 days after September 4, 2003, and any vacancy must be filled within 60 days. The President picks a chair from among the members within 15 days after all members are appointed. The Commission’s first meeting must happen within 30 days after the initial appointments are done. A majority of members is a quorum. The Commission can set its own rules by majority vote and can use a smaller quorum for hearings. The Commission must do a full legal and factual study of how prison rape affects governments, communities, families, and the economy. The study must look at many things, including current policies, prison conditions and design, causes, links to STD/HIV spread, characteristics of likely offenders and victims, staff training and misconduct, reporting systems, costs, and needs for more research. Within five years after its first meeting, the Commission must send a report to the President, Congress, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, each State’s governor, and each State corrections head. The report must give findings, recommended national standards (covering prisoner classification, investigations, evidence preservation, victim medical and mental care, testing and prophylaxis, staff training, confidentiality and reporting systems, data collection, and related matters), and its sources. Recommendations must not call for big new costs beyond what prisons now spend. The Commission will hold public hearings, may subpoena witnesses and documents (the Attorney General can enforce subpoenas in court), and may keep subpoenaed documents private unless two-thirds of members vote to release them. It may get information from federal, state, or local agencies, pay members’ travel at standard federal rates, detail federal employees with a two-thirds vote and agency approval, and contract researchers (with a two-thirds vote for NIJ contracts). Money as needed may be appropriated. The Commission ends 60 days after it files its required reports and is exempt from chapter 10 of title 5.