PLRA meaning in Governmental ?

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e, is a U.S. federal law that was enacted in 1996. Congress enacted PLRA in response to a significant increase in prisoner litigation in the federal courts; the PLRA was designed to decrease the incidence of litigation within the court system.

For the preceding 20 to 30 years, many US prisons and jails had been enjoined to make certain changes based on findings that the conditions of the institutions violated the constitutional rights of inmates (in particular, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment or the right to due process).

Many of the injunctions came as a result of consent decrees entered into between inmates and prison officials and endorsed by federal courts so relief was not necessarily tied to violations found. Many state officials and members of Congress had complained of the breadth of relief granted by federal judges, as the injunctions often required expensive remedial actions.

The PLRA was designed to curb the discretion of the federal courts in those types of actions. Thus, the central requirement of the act was a provision that a court "shall not grant or approve any prospective relief unless the court finds that such relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right."