NorthwestJune 13, 2015

MATT VOLZ of the Associated Press

HELENA, Mont. - Montana does not yet meet the federal standards meant to reduce prison rape, but the state has made progress and aims to be compliant within the next year and a half, Gov. Steve Bullock told federal officials.

Bullock told Attorney General Loretta Lynch in a letter last month the state is committed to meeting the standards set by the Prison Rape Elimination Act passed by Congress in 2003.

"While we are not there yet, we will diligently pursue full compliance within the next 16 months," he wrote to Lynch.

The 2003 law sets standards that aim to improve the detection and prevention of sexual harassment and assault in prisons nationwide. States that do not meet the standards are penalized by a 5 percent cut to their U.S. Justice Department grant money for the year, unless those states send assurances they will spend that amount on complying with the standards.

Bullock's letter was included in a Department of Justice report released this week that listed 10 states as certifying they are meeting the standards of the Prison Rape Elimination Act. Thirty-six other states, including Montana, along with three U.S. territories and the District of Columbia sent assurances that they are working to meet the standards.

Montana has made progress by hiring a program coordinator and drafting procedures for training staff on preventing, detecting and responding to sexual abuse, Bullock wrote.

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Montana Department of Corrections officials plan to spend $180,000 in federal grant money to audit its prisons, beginning with Montana's two youth correctional facilities in September. Audits of the state's adult facilities are expected to begin in August 2016.

The federal standards require all correctional facilities to be audited at least every three years to meet the standards, and corrections officials must audit a third of the facilities every year.

Last year, the Montana Department of Corrections had not trained any auditors and had no money to conduct audits, Bullock told Lynch in the letter.

The privately run Crossroads Correctional Center in Shelby will hire its own auditor for a review in August.

Montana corrections officials said the number of rapes and sexual assaults has dropped since 2008, when there were 54 verified inmate-on-inmate reports and 10 verified staff-on-inmate reports.

A Justice Department's prisoner survey released last year found that nearly 10 percent of Montana respondents reported staff-on-inmate sexual misconduct, which was the second-highest rate in the nationwide survey.

The survey was conducted from February 2011 through May 2012. It included 191 Montana prisoner responses.

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