ALL GOOD THINGS COMES TO AN END
The big news this week was the announcement to the end of the national emergency for Covid-19 declared by President Biden over thirty-five months ago. The timing was interesting as it comes just over a month after the BOP updated their CARES ACT Home Detention criteria. While there was not much new in the criteria, it clarified the 25% & 50 % eligibility issue. From my perspective, the preceding memo from April 2021, was broad and inconsistently applied around the country regarding the eligibility timeframes. The previous memo listed the eligibility percentages of the “sentence;” while the updated memo distinctly lists the “statutory sentence”. Further, the memo also indicates a further distinction that the FSA/FTC (time credits) do not apply in the eligibility determination. I might look at these issues from a very micro perspective, but most facilities thus far have interpreted the eligibility as the entire sentence (ie:50 [...]
The Definition of Insanity!
As chaos and criminality plague the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the highest levels of management, only a politician could come up with the idea of building the fourth federal prison in a remote area in eastern Kentucky. Let us not forget that the federal prison population has decreased by over 60, 000 people from the historic highs in 2013. In addition, the agency is also having problems in the retention and hiring of eligible staff especially in rural areas despite offering attractive incentive bonuses funded by taxpayers. While these obvious reasons are blatant examples of poor judgment, there are more subtle ones that exist that should have every voter and even the purported community beneficiaries rallying in opposition to this false panacea. Flying under the radar of false promises is the fallacy that prisons are a boon to the local economy and job creation. There is a myriad [...]
Legislative Dysfunction at its Finest (Omnibus Bill)- Where’s the Equal Act parity?
VENTING.......... Aside from the typos and misinformation, this Omnibus is really a joke from a prison perspective! The Below information is a cut and pasted from Senate.gov and very unprofessional. First issue I see, “OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL The agreement includes $139,000.000 for the Office of Inspector General (OIG) and includes $4,000,000 for OIG to establish an interdisciplinary team dedicated to the oversight of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).” My question is are they really going to spend 4 million to establish a “team” when they have wasted millions on this alleged “Independent Review Committee” for the FSA? The DOJ-IG already has BOP prison oversight, and you see the effectiveness of that in the “Rape Club” and the countless other DOJ reports which have been ineffective. What about the Millions spent on "The Colson Task Force" - The swamp at its finest. The rest of this is bill is disturbing [...]
Two blogs is better than one -First Step Act Credits and a Bulger analysis
I've been working directly with federal prisoners for thirty-five years, twenty-three with the Federal Bureau of Prisons in classification and programs. It's hard to astound me on prison issues but reading the DOJ-IG Report on the Whitey Bulger Murder was the most non-adherence to policy and I honestly feel the BOP was complicit in the murder at the direction of the highest levels of BOP management. I could present a two-day seminar (case study) on this report which could educate justice professionals on correctional programs policy, medical policy and process issues and am a bit disappointed that the DOJ missed some important elements making the murder even more egregious. I testify around the country and often cite DOJ Reports, and while not even being halfway through this report, I feel compelled to publish a few select paragraphs that really took me back from a civil rights perspective. I do feel [...]
A FEW EASY STEPS TO REFORM THE BOP OVERNIGHT
While the title of this article sounds unrealistic, most of it is simply unchallengeable. I have often remarked how the BOP is a quasi-militaristic organization susceptible to rather quick change via the chain of command. While the formal guidance to broaden existing policy application is needed via changes notices, operations memoranda and policy updates, the BOP director can immediately issue internal guidance in the following areas that will have a profound impact on agency operations, accountability and somewhat restore a severely damaged perception within the justice community: Administrative Remedy Procedures : Allow informal and formal administrative remedies to be filed on the Trulinks computer system. Incarcerated people have had the ability to submit requests within this system for years, so allowing the process to be initiated electronically would ensure less obstruction, greater accountability and responsiveness. Did I mention the BOP still issues carbonated forms for the formal complaint process [...]
A Brief Micro-FTC Issue
DISCLAIMER: Do not waste your time reading this unless you're up to the minute on the federal time credits issue. In September, the IG released a report on BOP policy which emphasized one of my many rants over the past several years regarding the agency’s ineptitude to update policy and issue formal “Change Notices” and “Operations Memoranda” in accordance with their own Directives Management Manual. DOJ OIG Releases Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Policy Development Process (justice.gov) Let us not forget the Second Chance Act of 2007 made significant changes to the BOP policy on what was referred to at the time as “CCC Utilization”, aka RRC/Halfway houses and not a single change notice or policy update was ever released regarding these changes. Program Statement 7310.04, Community Corrections Center (CCC) Utilization and Transfer Procedure (bop.gov) I am not writing this blog about this specific subject and only [...]