On Thursday, President Joe Biden, signed into law, the Federal Prison Oversight Act. The legislation, proposed by Senator John Osoff, among others, is designed to strengthen accountability for the plagued Bureau of Prisons, a division under the Department of Justice, which oversees 122 locations and 162,000 Federal Inmates.
The Federal Prison Oversight Act has three main goals. The first is to establish an ombudsman to field and investigate complaints pertaining to sexual and other types of inmate abuse by staff. The recent closure of FCI Dublin, after several documented sexual assaults, brought this issue to much needed light.
Next, the bill addresses chronic understaffing. There was an existing staffing shortage under previous director Michael Carvajal, which was only worsened through Covid-19. Although current Director Collette Peters did not have the actual numbers at a Senate hearing, she has recently acknowledged that the agency is at least 8000 employees short.
This shortage of employees becomes an issue of safety and security as a “band aid” to fix chronic understaffing is a procedure known as “augmentation” when staff members in other areas like, administration, back office and even education, are tasked with serving as correctional officers to cover shit vacancies. Director Peters told CBS News’ 60 minutes that all BOP officers receive the same training, so that they can easily fill those vacancies. However, it has been learned that re-training and other activities designed to support the correctional officers are not widely available to these other employees.
The final area includes escapes, inmate deaths and access to healthcare.
The bill provides for more training, more oversight (including unannounced inspections) and a hotline for inmates and their families to report abuse and other conditions in the Federal Prison System.
At Federal Prison Tips we help the justice impacted navigate their journey through Federal Prison from indictment to re-entry and everywhere in between. For more information, check out our “all in” services here. Contact us at info@federalprisontips.com or by using this contact form.
