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Statement of Need: The purpose of this rulemaking is to propose regulations setting standards to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confinement facilities. The proposed standards build on current U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Performance Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS) and other DHS detention policies, and respond to the President's May 17, 2012 Memorandum, "Implementing the Prison Rape Elimination Act," which directs all agencies with Federal confinement facilities to work with the Attorney General to propose rules or procedures setting standards to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse in confinement facilities.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: The NPRM would impose standards to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse and assault in DHS confinement facilities. These facilities consist of immigration detention facilities and holding facilities. The proposed standards would impose new requirements for some facilities and codify current requirements for other facilities. Such standards will require Federal, State, and local agencies, as well as private entities that operate confinement facilities, to incur costs in implementing and complying with those standards. The primary benefit of the NPRM would be improvements to the prevention, detection, and response to sexual abuse and assault. DHS will follow DOJ methodology for monetizing the value of preventing sexual abuse incidents, which includes consideration for costs of medical and mental health care treatment as well as pain, suffering, and diminished quality of life, among other factors. DHS will use a break-even analysis to assess the trade-off between the beneficial effects of the NPRM and the costs of implementing the rulemaking. The break-even analysis uses the monetized estimates of incidents avoided to determine the degree to which the NPRM must reduce the annual incidence of sexual abuse for the costs of compliance to break even with the monetized benefits of the standards. This does not include non-monetizable benefits of sexual abuse avoidance. The NPRM will include a Regulatory Impact Assessment.