When the BOP announced it is closing several camps and low-security prisons, citing both the staffing crisis and severe maintenance backlog, my first. instinct was to shout “Good!” But now, I am not convinced it is more than a game of musical chairs
Here’s what the BOP says it’s closing: In Texas – Beaumont FCI Low; Big Spring FCI and Satellite Camp; and La Tuna FCI, FSL (Federal Satellite Low) and Satellite Camp. In Kentucky – Lexington FMC Satellite Camp. In Virginia – Petersburg FCI Low. In California: Taft FCI. Why these facilities were chosen was not revealed, and the rationale is not clear from public data on staffing ratios and infrastructure disrepair. The OIG has documented that the BOP’s infrastructure problem is systemwide. If some of the incarcerated population is moved into other aging institutions, the BOP may simply be shifting wear and tear to facilities that are already strained.
Likewise, the closures contrast with the announcement just weeks earlier that the BOP plans to expand use of minimum-security camps as transitional reentry placements for people who already have RRC or home-confinement dates.
Budget optics or real relief?
Closing camps/lows allows the BOP to say it is acting decisively on maintenance and staffing. But in reality, it looks to be mostly a shell game – transferring prisoners elsewhere, often further away from their families, and doing the same with staff (while causing some to leave). PERA Executive Director Jack Donson observes that management doesn’t appear to understand that prisons are run by local “homesteaders” (who don’t want to transfer around), not rotating management. So, it runs the risk of further alienating the most vital resource of facility operations. That’s in part why the union, which is fighting in court to reinstate its master agreement with the agency, is calling on Congress to challenge the closures.
Meanwhile, the number of people incarcerated stays the same. I’d like to know why the BOP is concentrating the closures and conversions on minimum- and low-security facilities rather than across the system.
No solution without decarceration
The new BOP administration has moved to increase community placement, especially home confinement, RRC transfers, FSA credit implementation, and camp-based transitional placement. But I do not see any evidence that it’s pairing those moves with a serious, measurable population-reduction plan.
I get it – the BOP is limited in many respects in what it can do to release people. It cannot:
- Commute sentences.
- Change mandatory minimums.
- Resentence people.
- Repeal exclusions in the First Step Act.
- Force judges to grant compassionate release.
- Eliminate supervised release.
- Change criminal statutes.
- Release people who are not legally eligible for any form of release or prerelease custody.
Those actions require the president, Congress, prosecutors, courts, the Sentencing Commission, etc. to lead or cooperate. But the BOP could:
- Facilitate unresolved paperwork
People can lose or delay pre-release placement because of staff indifference to pending charges and/or the need to change supervision locations. Case managers are charged with facilitating resolution of these administrative hurdles, but too often prisoners come to MTOC or PERA confused and frustrated. The BOP could create a “release-barrier unit” at each institution, charged with identifying everyone within 24 months of release, listing every known barrier to community placement, assigning responsibility and resolving it before the person becomes eligible.
- Support compassionate-release motions
The BOP cannot grant compassionate release on its own, but it can support requests for reduction in sentence. Right now, the agency automatically ignores or obstructs them.The criteria for compassionate release are restrictive enough as it is; everything possible should be done to assist those who are seriously ill, elderly, debilitated or experiencing unusual family circumstances.
Two examples:
- One person I am in touch with was denied compassionate release because the judge believed the BOP when it argued that it was providing him adequate medical care. Yet he is now permanently incontinent because surgery has been delayed more than a year! Why doesn’t the BOP just admit that isn’t providing necessary medical care on a timely basis?
- The mother of another man’s child just died, and there is no one to take care of his daughter except her ex-boyfriend. He only has 10 months left on his sentence, yet the BOP refuses to assist with this CR request.
Right now, the BOP mostly treats compassionate release like something to resist, not a tool to use.
- Classify people downward faster
Federal law gives the BOP the authority to designate the place of imprisonment and transfer people between facilities. If it wanted to decarcerate the highest-security prisons, which are unhealthy, unsafe environments that encourage violence, the BOP could focus on its classification machinery, particularly management variables. Some people are in USPs not because they are currently dangerous, but because BOP policy treats their original charge, sentence length or prior conduct as permanently controlling. Management variables can be used to recognize that shift people lower in custody, where they can access more programs.
The bottom line: If the BOP is both closing lows and camps, while leaving USPs full, it should be asked: Why is the BOP shrinking the bottom of the custody ladder while failing to review whether people at the top still need to be there? The current closure pattern reduces low/minimum capacity while leaving over classification – and incarceration in general – untouched.
