[2] Michael Horowitz, a Hudson Institute senior fellow, has been credited with playing a part in passing PREA by helping to lead a coalition of the bill's supporters.
[3] The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 was supported by a broad base of activists, lobbyists, and organizations, particularly Just Detention International.
The Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission lobbied for the passage of the legislation as did the conservative organization Concerned Women for America.
[4] These groups were part of a diverse coalition of human rights and religious groups which backed the legislation; other groups which supported the act were: Amnesty International USA, Focus on the Family, Human Rights Watch, the NAACP, the National Association of Evangelicals, Penal Reform International, Physicians for Human Rights, the Presbyterian Church USA, Prison Fellowship, the Salvation Army and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) was ordered to offer training and technical assistance, provide a clearinghouse for information and produce its own annual report to Congress.
At the top of the Justice Department, PREA authorized the Attorney General to dispense grant money to facilitate implementation of the act.
The miscellaneous provisions of what was largely a law designed to help reintegrate criminal offenders into the community extended the existence of the NPREC from 3 to 5 years after its inception date.
The bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent on March 11, 2008, and the life of the NPREC was extended when President Bush signed the Second Chance Act on April 9, 2008.
"[7] U.S. Congress, within the text of PREA, noted that young, first-time offenders are at an increased risk of sexually motivated crimes.
The grants can be utilized by state agencies for personnel, training, technical assistance, data collection, and equipment to prevent, investigate, and prosecute prison rape.
The largest grant amount that year, $1 million, was to the Department of Corrections in Iowa, Michigan, New York, Texas and Washington.
[19] In December 2006, NPREC held two days of hearings focusing on sexual violence and rape in immigration detention facilities.
[20] In oral statements made by the U.S. delegation to the Committee Against Torture in 2006, Thomas Monheim with the U.S. Department of Justice responded to queries by Nora Sveaass about the implementation of PREA in immigration detention facilities.
[23] In December 2007 United States Department of Justice published its 2006 report about rapes and sexual violence in American prisons.
[24] The U.S. Congress, within the text of PREA, conservatively estimated that at least 13 percent of the inmates in the United States have been sexually assaulted in prison.
[25] PREA mandated that the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) provide funding for research conducted by private contractors who are considered experts within the field.
[18] One study by Mark Fleisher at Case Western Reserve University, initially released in January 2006 before being finalized or peer reviewed,[18] showed that prison rape was rarer than estimated.
[30] He noted that the Act has been used to enforce imprisonment and lengthen sentences, and has been more clearly successful in reinforcing incarceration than in reducing sexual violence.