A.G. GancarskiLast week, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement gave the city of Jacksonville $12,900 of federal funds via its Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) re-allocation.
The money, said the grant letter, is intended to establish a “zero tolerance” culture “related to sexual abuse and sexual harassment in confinement facilities.”
The grant period extends eight months, and apparently is retroactive from Feb. 1, 2016 to Sept. 30, 2016.
According to the project information contained within the grant letter, Duval County has three separate detention facilities.
Combined, those facilities can hold up to 3,137 inmates.
In 2015, 33 sexual assault cases were reported in one of the three detention facilities, and it is left unstated how many unreported cases there might have been.
The JSO is preparing for a PREA audit; to that end, a full-time PREA coordinator is on staff, with PREA managers at each facility.
Additionally, a 24/7 hotline is available, a “written policy is under review,” and there is an “established relationship” with the Women’s Center Sexual Assault Forensic Examiner program.
Inmates receive a handbook when booked that includes PREA “rights and resources.”
However, there are caveats, according to the project overview from the grant application.
“Some inmates will not have the desire to use the handbook and others may want to read it but don’t have the ability.”
As well, there are posters in each facility, but “despite an array of attempts to ward off issues, the tape that they are hung with does not stick to the walls properly and they have been defaced on occasion.”
This leads to inmates not being aware of their recourse. In those cases, “the hotline is useless.”
To this end, grant funds will be used to purchase nine video monitors and “related equipment” to “implement ongoing video education” in all three facilities.
