34 U.S.C. § 30302: Purposes

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.