13: Help or Harm: A Critical and Multimodal Discourse Analysis of PREA Policies

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), through the lens of juvenile detention facilities and youth prisons. The author will investigate the written policy of PREA and its stated intended benefits to carceral populations. A dissection of an informational video, created for the purpose of educating detained youth, will be utilized to explore the institutional implications of the PREA policy. The author will consider the following theories in this chapter’s discourse: Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Critical Race Theory (CRT), Critical Pedagogy, and Queer Theory.