Iowa's PREA Improvement Project - Ensuring Compliance with PREA

The State of Iowa has nine juvenile detention facilities.  These juvenile detention centers are operated and funded by counties and are spread relatively evenly across the state.  Two of the larger facilities are in the two counties with the greatest population in the state, and sub-sequentially the greatest juvenile populations.  Based on 2020 data, these two counties are Polk County (121,471 youth), and Linn County (51,825 youth); which is almost a quarter of the youth in Iowa (24%).  On average, from 2018 through 2022, these two juvenile detention facilities accounts for 34% of the juvenile detention holds in the Iowa.   Both of these juvenile detention Centers completed their most recent PREA audits in 2022. Both facilities were found to be in compliance with all of the PREA standards, however, administrative staff from the two facilities have identified preventive infrastructure and technology enhancements of the current video and audio monitoring systems, including software and computers used for monitoring and recording, that need upgrades, as required in the PREA standard for juvenile facilities, §115.313(d)(3) and §115.318(b).  The video and audio upgrades have been identified by administration at these two facilities to continue ensuring a sexual safe environment for the youth that are placed in the custody of the facility.