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Title 34 — Crime Control and Law Enforcement

Chapter 303 — Prison Rape Elimination

§ 30302. Purposes

Statutory text

The purposes of this chapter are to—

(1)

establish a zero-tolerance standard for the incidence of prison rape in prisons in the United States;

(2)

make the prevention of prison rape a top priority in each prison system;

(3)

develop and implement national standards for the detection, prevention, reduction, and punishment of prison rape;

(4)

increase the available data and information on the incidence of prison rape, consequently improving the management and administration of correctional facilities;

(5)

standardize the definitions used for collecting data on the incidence of prison rape;

(6)

increase the accountability of prison officials who fail to detect, prevent, reduce, and punish prison rape;

(7)

protect the Eighth Amendment rights of Federal, State, and local prisoners;

(8)

increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Federal expenditures through grant programs such as those dealing with health care; mental health care; disease prevention; crime prevention, investigation, and prosecution; prison construction, maintenance, and operation; race relations; poverty; unemployment; and homelessness; and

(9)

reduce the costs that prison rape imposes on interstate commerce.

Legislative history

Reconstructed from this section’s Code source credit and amendment notes, resolved against the local Statutes at Large. Editorial notes are evidence, not the law that made the change.

  1. Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003

    Pub. L. 108–79 § 3 · 117 Stat. 972

    Enacted · 34 U.S.C. § 30302

    (Pub. L. 108–79, § 3, Sept. 4, 2003, 117 Stat. 974.)

    Source evidence

    Code source credit
    (Pub. L. 108–79, § 3, Sept. 4, 2003, 117 Stat. 974.)

    Enacted provision · exact public law section
    SEC. 3. PURPOSES.   The purposes of this Act are to— (1) establish a zero-tolerance standard for the incidence of prison rape in prisons in the United States; (2) make the prevention of prison rape a top priority in each prison system; (3) develop and implement national standards for the detection, prevention, reduction, and punishment of prison rape; (4) increase the available data and information on the incidence of prison rape, consequently improving the management and administration of correctional facilities; (5) standardize the definitions used for collecting data on the incidence of prison rape; (6) increase the accountability of prison officials who fail to detect, prevent, reduce, and punish prison rape; (7) protect the Eighth Amendment rights of Federal, State, and local prisoners; (8) increase the efficiency and effectiveness of Federal expenditures through grant programs such as those dealing with health care; mental health care; disease prevention; crime prevention, investigation, and prosecution; prison construction, maintenance, and operation; race relations; poverty; unemployment; and homelessness; and (9) reduce the costs that prison rape imposes on interstate commerce.

1 of 1 references resolved to an enrolled provision

Editorial Notes

Codification

Section was formerly classified to section 15602 of Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare, prior to editorial reclassification and renumbering as this section.

Credits

(Pub. L. 108–79, § 3, , 117 Stat. 974.)

Parsed from the official OLRC USLM XML in data/usc_all/usc34.xml · release point 119-108 · OLRC build 2026-06-01

USLM identifier /us/usc/t34/s30302