Developing a PREA-Compliant Language Access Plan for Incarcerated Survivors
Providing language access to incarcerated victims of sexual abuse honors their humanity and worth in the wake of an experience that may have left them feeling stripped of both. Drawing on Vera’s Center on Victimization and Safety’s work on the Office for Victims of Crime-funded Translating Justice Initiative, this guide offers concrete steps for how correctional agencies can craft language access plans and engage interpreters and translators that are consistent with the requirements in the National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape (commonly referred to as the “PREA Standards”).
Creating language access plans for PREA-related educational materials and services will contribute to safer correctional facilities and increase the likelihood that incarcerated people with limited English proficiency will report and seek help if they experience sexual victimization.