Policy confusion
After releasing over a hundred updated policies during the past year, the BOP has revised several of them again. This breaks with past-agency practice, in which it took decades for policies to be updated.
One of the updates from September is to the Patient Care program statement, among the most fundamental and important medical policies. The new policy refers four times to a program statement titled “Health Care Utilization Management.” But there is no such directive on the BOP website. So, I submitted a FOIA request and received a reply confirming that there is no such statement. I then reached out to BOP staff, who only told me where to find the listing of all policies! Strange but true.
What the BOP has failed to update is probably one of the most important directives of them all: CCC Utilization and Transfer Procedures, PS # 7310.04. Aside from being nearly 30 years old, it does not incorporate the recent memoranda clarifying halfway house processing issues relative to the Second Chance Act. I have long chastised the agency for not updating this policy via change notices, as required in the Directives Management Manual, PS 1221.66. As a result, I often hear about staff who incorrectly use this policy when determining RRC referral eligibility.
FSA news
Our organization commented on a new BOP rule recently published in the Federal Register. The BOP will now begin awarding FSA credits starting at sentencing certain conditions are met. That means time credits will accumulate before arriving at the designated facility The rule is needed but premature. The Supreme Court will hear the Maxwell v. Thomas case to answer the question: Can a federal prisoner use a habeas corpus petition to challenge the government’s calculation of First Step Act time credits to seek an earlier transfer to a halfway house or home confinement?
Supreme Court to weigh in
The Kingdom v. Trump case, a class action suit challenging the Trump’s Executive Order and new BOP policies that prohibit access to gender-affirming care, is finally in front of the Supreme Court. In an example of BOP management hypocrisy, one of the key government witnesses has a previous reputation as a proactive and staunch supporter of transgender rights (when practicing in a clinical capacity in the prison setting). Rightly so, Judge Lambert rejected the declaration.
