NOTICE OF PROPOSED RULEMAKING DOCKET NO. OAG-131

AG ORDER NO. 3244-2011; RIN 1105-AB34

76 FR 6248 (FEB. 3, 2011)

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE: NATIONAL STANDARDS TO PREVENT, 

DETECT, AND RESPOND TO PRISON RAPE

MEETING SUMMARY

RE: MEETING WITH FORMER MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL PRISON RAPE 

ELIMINATION COMMISSION (NPREC)

DATE/TIME OF MEETING: MARCH 31, 2011 11:30 A.M.-12:30 P.M.

PLACE OF MEETING: DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, RFK BUILDING

ATTENDEES:

FROM THE FORMER NPREC

John A. Kaneb, former commissioner 

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

Eric R. Columbus, Senior Counsel to the Deputy Attorney General

Frank Amanat, Senior Counsel, Office of Legal Policy

Joshua Delaney, Senior Trial Attorney, Special Litigation Section, Civil Rights 

Division

ALSO PRESENT:

Tara Graham, Senior Program Associate, Vera Institute of Justice

SUMMARY OF MEETING:

In mid-March 2011, a number of the former NPREC commissioners requested via 

email a follow-up to the meeting that took place on February 10, 2011, to better 

understand how the Department arrived at its proposed standards and cost conclusions, 

and to discuss the commissioners’ reactions to and comments on the Notice of Proposed 

Rulemaking (NPRM). The only former commissioner who was ultimately able to 

participate in the meeting at the scheduled time was Mr. Kaneb. 

Mr. Kaneb provided the Department representatives with copies of a 

memorandum which had been sent to the Department via email on March 21, 2011, on 

behalf of the former members of the NPREC. The memorandum, a copy of which is 

attached, submitted seven questions and requests for information. Mr. Kaneb asked the 

DOJ representatives whether responses to these questions and requests for information 
would be forthcoming. The Department representatives stated that information 

responsive to General Question 3 was posted on the public docket for the rulemaking and 

referred to the Initial Regulatory Impact Analysis with regard to General Question 2. 

Department representatives declined to respond to the remaining questions. 

Mr. Kaneb stated that the former commissioners had concerns regarding the 

proposed rule’s standards relating to cross-gender patdowns, exhaustion of administrative 

remedies, full-time vs. part-time status of PREA coordinators, and audits. In addition,

Mr. Kaneb stated that the former commissioners objected to the exclusion of immigration 

detention facilities from the scope of the proposed rule. 

Mr. Kaneb and the Department also discussed the Department’s estimates of the 

costs of the NPREC’s proposed standards, and the source of the differences between 

those estimates and the cost estimates for the standards in the Department’s proposed 

rule.

Mr. Kaneb concluded by emphasizing that tolerance of sexual abuse in detention 

settings is incompatible with American values and by urging the Department to 

promulgate strong and effective standards. The Department encouraged Mr. Kaneb and 

the other former commissioners to lay out the full extent of their concerns in their formal 

comments, and observed that the Department would address those and other comments, 

as appropriate and warranted, in the preamble to the final rule.