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 [...]
FIRST STEP ACT- FTC CONFUSION INSIDE THE FENCES
The quiet on the Federal Time Credits (FTC) front ended just over a week ago when newly appointed Director Peters appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee. During her appearance she indicated the computer system integration to calculate FTC was finally implemented. This statement was a surprise for even the staff I spoke to inside because there had not been any internal notification memos at that point, however, things moved fast shortly after. As this week progressed, I received numerous emails from people inside that their release date had been adjusted a full year. One person was given a calculation showing they had earned over 400 days pre-release custody in addition to the time they were already awarded for early release to supervision. That settled the question that pre-release custody is no longer limited to twelve months as authorized in the Second Chance Act. On the negative side, I am [...]
A Deeper Dive into Federal Prison oversight!
Last week, Senator Jon Ossoff entered a major bi-partisan bill to overhaul federal prison oversight after a 10-month long investigation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It seemed like the ending to a perfect storm of prison reform measures beginning with the final implementation of the First Step Act, removal of the former federal prison director, Michael Carvajal and the selection of Colette Peters as his replacement who had the reputation as a prison “Reformer” within the Oregon Department of Corrections. First, we shouldn’t forget that Director Peters is not the first outside director selected to the reform the troubled agency. General Mark Inch abruptly resigned from the agency in 2018 in less than a year after his appointment partly because he was undermined by administrators within the dysfunctional agency culture. I met with General Inch early on in his tenure and he had told me he was going to [...]