S. 307
Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act
Sponsor: Marsha Blackburn
3 cosponsors
Official summary
Written by the Congressional Research Service.
Prison Staff Safety Enhancement Act
This act establishes requirements for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and component agencies to assess and respond to incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault by incarcerated individuals against Bureau of Prisons (BOP) staff.
Specifically, the act requires DOJ to adopt national standards for the prevention, reduction, and punishment of sexual harassment and sexual assault by incarcerated individuals against correctional officers or other employees of the BOP.
Additionally, the act requires the BOP to fully implement the recommendations of the DOJ Inspector General contained in the report titled Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Address Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Committed by Inmates Toward Staff.
Text of the bill
Congress finds the following:
(1) In 2023, the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Justice released a report titled Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Efforts to Address Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Committed by Inmates Toward Staff (in this section referred to as the Inspector General report).
(2) The Inspector General report examined all sanctioned inmate sexual incidents in the Bureau of Prisons (in this section referred to as the Bureau) between fiscal years 2015 and 2021, and found that inmate-on-staff sexual harassment and sexual assault is widespread.
(3) The Inspector General report further found that the Bureau does not collect adequate data on inmate-on-staff sexual harassment and sexual assault and that, because of the Bureau's inadequate data, the Bureau has not been able to identify the full scope of inmate-on-staff sexual harassment and sexual assault.
(4) The Inspector General report further found that the Bureau does not have systems to evaluate the effectiveness of the Bureau's strategies to mitigate inmate-on-staff sexual harassment and sexual assault.
(5) The Inspector General report made recommendations to the Bureau to address the failures in the Bureau's data collection and mitigation efforts, but the Bureau has not implemented these recommendations.